


Spun of Starlight and Gold

by Cosmic_Biscuit



Category: Tiger & Bunny
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Ambiguous Relationships, Drama, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Other, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-17
Updated: 2012-11-17
Packaged: 2017-11-18 21:43:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 33,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/565611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cosmic_Biscuit/pseuds/Cosmic_Biscuit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's your standard story. Poor hunter gets sent on impossible task by a rich man, but succeeds, and lives happily ever after. That's how fairy tales go, right? Well, sort of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spun of Starlight and Gold

An icy wind threatened to cut him to the bone, and he huddled deeper into his heavy fur coat, swearing under his breath. For the third time in as many minutes, he cursed the ill turn of luck that had landed him in this territory, and the bad-tempered noble who’d sent him back out into the storm.  
  
With the storm clouds blocking the sky, he could only make a guess at how long he’d been out here… or how long he had left. And he had yet to spot even a single critter. Whatever ‘pets’ the Baron was keeping in this creepy part of the forest, they were good at staying hidden. He tromped his way over another hill covered in deep snow.  
  
On the other side, he found tracks.  
  
Despite himself, he felt a twinge of hope. Maybe he’d be able to keep his head yet. The wind, thankfully, was on his side for now, and he silently willed it to keep blowing west as he followed the prints in the snow. The storm and snow made it hard to identify exactly what it was he was tracking, but it had to be something low to the ground. Something like a deer or elk would have had a much more distinct pattern than this.  
  
The tracks vanished through a thicket of short trees. Cautious of making too much noise, he carefully pushed them aside. His quarry turned out to be a massive, fluffy, white and gold rabbit that was sweeping snow off a stump with its nose and paws, apparently looking for something. And unaware of his presence.  
  
Biting his lip, the hunter eased himself out of the thicket and slowly approached the creature. He was almost within distance that he could use the short snare he’d been provided, when his left boot crunched a stick that had been hidden under the snow.  
  
The rabbit’s head flew up, and they stared at each other for only a brief moment-  
  
-before it disappeared like a wisp of smoke.  
  
Kotetsu gaped, the snare falling from his hand.  
  
If _that_ was one of the pets…

  
  
===

  
  
He stomped his way through the snow, swearing more vividly. The son of a bitch had sent him out here damn well knowing that he was going to be chasing after magical creatures. The game had been even more rigged against him than he’d thought.  
  
Well, to the third hell with that.  
  
Now he was even more determined to survive this mess.  
  
He wasn’t sure how far he’d gone when he found a cave cut into a cliffside. There was a strangely warm breeze coming out of it. He was wary about what sort of monsters might be inside, considering what he he now knew he was hunting, but he’d lost all feeling in his hands and feet already. ‘Any port in a storm,’ he decided, and made his way in. The heat inside was like needles poking in every direction under his skin, but he was glad for it.  
  
He was even more glad when he found more tracks. The dull moonlight struggling through the clouds outside didn’t reveal much, but he could see that several creatures had been here at multiple times. Interesting… maybe the pets used this place to take shelter from the storm, too.  
  
That could be helpful.  
  
Keeping a hand on the wall for guidance and hoping he wouldn’t run into anything nasty like holes or snakes or a sleeping bear, the hunter investigated deeper into the cave, and was surprised to see light from around a corner ahead. The other end of the cave already?  
  
He cautiously poked his head out to take a peek, and found the source of light was actually moon crystals scattered about a wider cave room. A deep green pool stretched across the center of it, and the steam rising off it looked achingly inviting.  
  
There was also something moving in it. He couldn’t see what exactly, just the ripples. As he approached  for a better look, something on the ground flashed in the light of the crystals, and he looked down to find a white and gold pelt stretched across a flat rock.  
  
White and gold… He crouched and took off his gloves to inspect it. The fur was so soft it had to be rabbit. Maybe…  
  
A startled, human sounding noise made him look up, and he sucked in a breath in surprise.  
  
Staring back at him from the water was a young man. Even in the strange not quite blue light of the moon crystals, the irises of his eyes glowed the same deep green as the rabbit the hunter had crossed paths with before, and his hair and skin were the same pale gold and white as the fur under Kotetsu’s hand now. Around his neck was a thin, elaborately designed gold and gem collar with a large hole in the center of it.  
  
The stranger gave Kotetsu a distrusting scowl, but couldn’t hold the stare and kept glancing nervously at the fur.  
  
And that was when it finally hit him.  
  
He’d head of the selkies in the northern seas, who could shed their fur and become human, but all reports of those had been seals. Since he never traveled that far north, he’d never really given it much consideration. He probably should have guessed there were other species of the same type, considering how many different kinds of supernaturals he’d run across, but the occasion had never come up that he’d had to think about it much.  
  
Until now. Saints, this whole ordeal was just getting stranger and stranger.  
  
“Come here,” he coaxed. “You want this back, don’t you?”  
  
The rabbit in human form glared at him and sank deeper into the water, eyes just barely visible over the ripples.  
  
“Hey, don’t be like that.” Kotetsu picked up the fur and went to crouch at the water’s edge. “I’m not going to hurt you. I want to make a deal, okay?”  
  
He’d just sort of automatically assumed the young man could understand him, and apparently he was right, because the creature edged closer through the deep pool and reached out a demanding hand for the fur. “I’ll give it back,” he promised. “And I’ll even help you find what you were looking for earlier. You just gotta promise me that you won’t disappear on me. Deal?”  
  
The hand drew back as the man considered the offer, then Kotetsu yelped as he was suddenly knocked on his back. Rather than just stealing the fur away from him immediately, his assailant leaned over him, sniffing at his face and neck curiously.  
  
Oh, hell. He was even prettier up close, and his bare state and the warm water dripping off him onto Kotetsu’s face made the hunter blush in embarrassment. What in the-  
  
After an uncomfortably thorough checking over, he was apparently deemed trustworthy, because the blond drew back and again put a hand on the fur in a clear order. Hoping he wasn’t about to blow his chances at getting out of this alive, Kotetsu handed it over.  
  
There wasn’t a flash of light or sparks or anything similarly dramatic when the rabbit put his fur back on. Just one second there was a soaking wet man leaning over him, and then there was a huge mass of perfectly dry fluff perched on his chest. A surprisingly _light_ mass of dry fluff, he found, as he was able to sit up easily.  
  
It was also much easier to breathe around the creature when he wasn’t in human shape.  
  
Seated in his lap, the rabbit prodded him with a paw in an unmistakable hint to get moving. Unable to help a wry smile at the critter’s bossy nature, Kotetsu got to his feet, and was relieved when the rabbit followed.

  
  
===

  
  
The tree stump, when they came back to it, looked like an ordinary tree stump, albeit more covered in snow than before, but when Kotetsu looked down at the rabbit, he got a foot thump in response.  Okay, then.  
  
Brushing off the snow, he crouched down to get a look. Lighting was still abysmally poor because of the storm, but after a little searching, he thought he saw something glint in a crevice between bark and tree. Digging gloved fingers into the bark, he carefully peeled it back, and the something fell loose into the snow. He picked it up and turned it in his hands, to find it was a heavy little gem that he could tell just from a quick glance would fit into the pattern of golden vines and gems at the center of the rabbit's collar. He could feel a faint pulse coming from it, and reached over to touch the stones in the collar to find they had the same resonance, but were much weaker.  
  
Well. That explained why the rabbit had been wanting to find it… sort of. “How come you didn’t just leave?” he asked the creature. “The pattern's gotta have this, doesn't it? So without it, that means you’re free, right?”  
  
The rabbit was silent as ever, but Kotetsu was sure the look he got in response was calling him several shades of idiot. The implied complexities of the relationship between master and pets was interesting, but it would have to be left lying. Kotetsu doubted it would be very long before dawn, as much time as it had taken to ‘catch’ the rabbit, and that meant he had to start finding his way back to the castle.  
  
“Come on, then,” he said as he carefully clicked the stone back into place. He was half expecting the rabbit to not go with him, to just disappear once his end of the bargain had been fulfilled, but it still loped along in the snow beside him. He found himself oddly touched by the honesty, and reached down to pet it. “Good bunny.”  
  
The rabbit nipped him in response, unamused by the endearment, and, both in response to the rabbit’s attitude and the fact that he wasn’t going to die tonight, he laughed a little as they headed down the hill.  
  
There was sunlight just beginning to peek through the clouds near the horizon as they approached the castle gate, and Kotetsu couldn’t help a brief sigh of relief at having still made it under the quite literal deadline. The rabbit gave him a questioning head tilt at that, and he bent to scratch long ears in return. “Looks like we’re in the clear, Bunny.”  
  
He got a disdainful sniff in response. Apparently the critter was still miffed by the nickname. “Don’t make that face. After we say hi to your master, I’ll be out of your fur and you’ll never have to hear it again.”  
  
The guards seemed to recognize the rabbit on sight and let them through with no trouble. Once they were inside the gates and out of the snow, he gently nudged the rabbit to follow him to the study he’d been ordered to return to.

  
  
===

  
  
From what he’d experienced before, he was hardly surprised to find the lord very displeased at his success. What did catch him off guard was that the man seemed much more annoyed at the _rabbit_ than him.  
  
The rabbit seemed just as startled as he was, huddling nervously by his ankle, and it made Kotetsu very briefly tune out what the noble was saying as he wondered. Had the rabbit never been involved in this creepy little game before? Why not?  
  
“It can’t be helped, I suppose,” the old man finally said, snapping him out of his thoughts. “For one to win, the other must lose.”  
  
The hunter felt a cold spike in his stomach. Surely the man didn’t mean what he _thought_ he meant… did he? He couldn’t possibly be planning to- “Er, sir-“  
  
The old man ignored him and pulled a string for a small summoning bell. The servants who responded were both surprisingly young; a redheaded man with a surly expression and a girl with her dark hair bobbed. The rabbit visibly reacted in fear at the sight of the pair, ears flattening against its back as it tried to make itself look as small and unnoticeable as possible. But it made no effort at wriggling or kicking free when the girl gave it a syrupy sweet smile and picked it up, and she smiled even wider and hugged it to her chest like a favored doll.  
  
The picture they made was quite a bit on the disturbing side, to be honest.  
  
At a signal from the noble, the rabbit drooped in resignation and the pair took it away before Kotetsu could make any further protest. “I’m sure you won’t have any trouble finding your way out of my territory now that the storm has passed, hm?” The old man asked in a cold, obvious dismissal, and Kotetsu bit his lip, forcing himself to bow respectfully, and backed out of the room.  
  
He supposed he should just be grateful that his life was being spared, he thought as he made his way out of the castle under the watchful stares of the guards and discovered that the storm had conveniently stopped entirely. But now he felt sick at the thought that he might have doomed the rabbit when it had been so polite as to honor its end of their deal.  
  
The worry plagued him even as he found his way back to the village he’d set out from, and he didn’t acknowledge any of the cheerful greetings tossed his way in the market. He’d made it about halfway through when his stomach vocally reminded him it had been nearly a full day since he’d eaten, so he changed course to the tavern he’d visited before.  
  
“Wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon, hunter,” the proprietress said as a cook set down a plate in front of him.  
  
He picked up his fork. “Bad luck,” he muttered, but before he could put a bite in his mouth, an elegant hand swiped it from him.  
  
“On the house for a story,” Agnes said with an almost predatory grin, dangling both the fork and the money he’d paid for the meal in front of his nose. Given the woman’s penchant for gossip when he’d passed through the day before, he should have expected the ‘bribe’ coming, he thought, and gave a small snort.  
  
“Got lost in a storm and pissed off one of the local nobles by intruding in his territory.”  
  
Her eyebrows raised high, and she gave him back the fork, but not the money. “You got set on a hunting game?”  
  
“You know about those?”  
  
“All the locals around here do. Maverick’s notorious for jealously guarding his property. Most people he gives the challenge to don’t make it.”  
  
“Yeah, I kinda got that notion when I was out chasing shadows in the snow.”  
  
“Which one did you catch?” When he didn’t answer, she waved the small purse in front of him again. He didn’t really feel up to taking the bait, but she evidently wasn’t going to leave him alone until he spilled.  
  
“Some kind of big light-colored rabbit,” he said, holding back the knowledge that said rabbit had been a shapeshifter. Even without mentioning that, though, her jaw dropped.  
  
“You caught the _rabbit_?” she asked in a soft hiss to keep from being overheard. “No one _ever_ catches the rabbit. We’d started wondering if Maverick was intentionally hiding him during the hunts.”  
  
That… made a lot of sense, actually, and supported his earlier wondering. If the rabbit had never been in the part of the woods he’d been sent to during a hunt before, it was no wonder he’d been able to talk it down. It had probably assumed he was either an errand boy or some lost schmuck. But why-  
  
It hit him out of the blue. That gem. That was why the rabbit had been in the hunt area when it normally wouldn’t have. If it hadn’t been for the stone in his collar popping loose at the particular time it did, he never would have even seen the critter. It also explained why the old man had been so angry about it being caught, and why the rabbit had been so confused by that rage.  
  
The purse was set down beside his plate, but Kotetsu suddenly didn’t feel hungry anymore. “What happens to the pets who get caught?”  
  
“Depends on how valuable they are to Maverick. Some get sold; most get killed.”  
  
“The rabbit?”  
  
“Hard to say. No one’s sure why, but that seems to be the most important animal he’s got. It’s certainly been here the longest of any of them.”  
  
That wasn’t very reassuring.  
  
A hail from one of the cooks finally drew Agnes’ attention away, and Kotetsu only forced down a few bites before getting up, leaving the money behind. He had to find a way to help the rabbit somehow. It was only fair, he told himself, after having gotten the creature harmed.  
  
 A castle that large had to have regular supply convoys; maybe he could find a way to sneak himself in along with one of them.

  
  
===

  
  
He brought several catches to the head of the next caravan headed to the castle, and luck proved on his side. Having lost their resident hunter to a pretty face four towns back, the guy in charge had been glad for the meat and willing to consider it his payment for a few days’ travel.  
  
He kept his hood up, just in case, but no one spared him so much as a glance as the wagons passed through the castle gate.  
  
So far, so good, but he had to admit now that he wasn’t even sure what he was going to do when he _found_ the rabbit. _If_ he found the rabbit. The tavern owner had made it sound like it wouldn’t be in any extreme danger, but Kotetsu thought of the look of the two who’d come to collect it and couldn’t help a shiver  
  
Well. He’d figure something out. Huddling deeper into his cloak, he quietly separated himself from the wagons to begin his search.  
  
The fading light helped him hide, and, without windswept snow to blind him, made the hunt a bit easier. It was still daunting, however. For a place that didn’t look so huge from the outside, it was like a maze with rooms upon rooms that connected to more rooms. Nevermind all the hidden passages it had to hold.  
  
The moon had come up when, almost entirely by chance, he crouched by a window blocked by iron bars and found a familiar pale body curled on the cold stone of the room inside, a chain leading from around his throat to a ring embedded in the stone a few feet away.  
  
The body moved, apparently trying to find a more comfortable position, and he couldn’t help the hiss of alarm that escaped when he saw the whip welts clustered so thick across the man’s back that his skin was almost entirely red. Blood still trailed sluggishly from some of the worst, and Kotetsu’s heart clenched.  
  
Okay.  
  
Now he knew what he was going to do.  
  
He had to get the creature out of this place somehow.  
  
He was pleasantly surprised that one of the bars was loose, and very carefully jiggled it until it popped free, giving him enough space to slip in.  
  
Though he was trying to be quiet, the fact that his entrance didn’t even gain a glance worried him more. Sure, the rabbit had moved a few minutes ago, but was he even _conscious_?  
  
A click and rattle of the door made him quickly take cover, and he watched as a girl came in. He couldn’t see her face from the angle, but light green hair was bobbed in the same style as the unnerving doll girl’s, and she carried a bundle of oddly-colored twigs under one arm and balanced a basin of water on her other hip.  
  
“Grew a new blend this week,” she told the wounded man as she crouched to set the basin down and pull a rag from a pocket on her work apron. “Hopefully it will work faster than the last one.”  
  
The man weakly greeted her by nosing her palm when she reached out, which was interesting. So he apparently had at least _one_ friend in this terrible place. Another pet, maybe?  
  
Kotetsu watched from his hiding spot as she cracked the twigs one by one and split the bark off to let sap drip into the water. When she was satisfied with the amount, she wiped her hands on her pants and picked up the basin, before her eyes and hands flared bright green.  
  
Dryad, he realized. She’s some kind of dryad.  
  
The girl soaked the rag in the mess and began to spread it over the welts, putting a hand on the collar to keep the man from thrashing as he hissed in anguish and dug long fingers into the stone. “I know, I know. Hold still, this’ll only take a minute.”  
  
There was a strange sort of sound, like bits of glass falling to the floor, but all Kotetsu could see when she pulled away was that the young man managed to sweep something up and press it into her hand once the pain had eased. Once it was hidden away in her pocket, she carefully unhooked the heavy iron collar to reveal his gold one underneath, and helped him move to lie down in the shaft of moonlight from the window Kotetsu had come through instead. Almost immediately, the welts began to fade, and she petted his hair comfortingly as she hooked him to another, much smaller tie, and he finally started to calm down.  
  
“Huang.”  
  
She and Kotetsu both looked over to find the grouchy redhead at the door.  
  
“Stop coddling the beast. It’s not your job.”  
  
“Tch. My _job_ is to put him back together once you’re finished with him. How I _do_ it is my own business. Or would you rather I sent him back to our lord a bloody mess and tell him why?”  
  
The scowl deepened, but the young man left, and now Kotetsu was more than a little confused, and very concerned. These injuries were a common occurrence? Then what had-  
  
The girl blew a raspberry at the spot where the redhead had been, then gave her charge’s hair one last gentle ruffle before getting up to retrieve his fur from where it hung on the wall. The lead prevented her from properly covering him to change him back, so she draped it over his shoulders like a blanket. “I’ll bring you some berries with your breakfast. Those pink and white ones you like. Try and get some sleep, okay?”  
  
Kotetsu held his breath until the door closed, then swallowed. Now or never, he thought, and eased out of his hiding place to approach.  
  
Kotetsu cautiously approached the chained up young man and, this time, the blond did raise his head to look at him. “Hey,” Kotetsu murmured, kneeling down when he got close. He put out a hand, then hesitated, unsure that the creature would want to be touched, especially after he’d been the one to get the rabbit in trouble. But, after a few awkward seconds, the blond nosed his fingers, apparently willing to accept comfort even from him.  
  
“I’m so sorry,” Kotetsu murmured, obliging the creature by gently running his fingers through soft, sweat-dampened hair. “I didn’t want to die, but I didn’t want anyone else getting hurt in my place either. If I’d known he was going to do this to you, I wouldn’t have made that deal.”  
  
The young man was still silent, but tilted his head slightly in an apparently questioning look. Unfortunately, the inquiry Kotetsu guessed was being made - _‘What would you have done, then?_ ’- was one he didn’t really have an answer for. Unable to make himself flounder out some kind of response, he just kept petting, and that seemed to be answer enough for the rabbit.

  
After a minute or two of silence, his hand accidentally wandered a little too far down, and the young man gave a soft hiss of pain when fingers brushed a lash mark just past his collar. “Sorry,” Kotetsu apologized quickly. “Let me see?”  
  
The blond bit his lip in hesitation, then released the fur he was clutching around himself. Moving around behind the man, Kotetsu carefully eased it down to get a look at his back. The dryad and the rabbit’s own healing capability had done some amazing work together; what had looked like it would irreparably scar before now  just resembled thorn scratches. Still uncomfortable as hell, but not debilitatingly so Then he remembered the conversation he’d heard. “How many more times do you have to go through this?”  
  
There was still no verbal response, and he was beginning to wonder if the rabbit could even talk at all. Before he could ask that question, however, the young man’s head suddenly shot up with a look of alarm.  
  
Kotetsu opened his mouth to ask what was wrong, and then the ground sharply rocked under them.  
  
When dust and bits of stone had stopped raining down, Kotetsu could hear yelling outside. Some instinct told him that hadn’t been an earthquake, and when he went to the barred window, his suspicions were confirmed. Part of the south wall had a big _hole_ , like something had bashed  _through_ it. “What the-“  
  
Metal rattling made him turn back. Despite clearly being in pain, the rabbit was straining against his chain, desperately trying to get to the door. Worried the blond was going to injure himself worse that way, Kotetsu quickly went to unfasten the connection to the collar, then stumbled back in surprise when the creature just vanished, like he had in the woods, leaving him holding the empty restraint.  
  
He didn’t get the chance to be frustrated. There was more yelling and screaming outside, and the ground rumbled again. Wherever the rabbit had gone, he hoped it would be safe, but he couldn’t afford to just stand there or go searching for it again when there were people being killed by whatever had caused that hole. Dragging himself back up through the barred window and avoiding some panicked guards, he threw himself into rescue mode. Even if he was in danger too, this was just like a barn fire back home, nothing more, he told himself.  
  
Kotetsu had managed to get three people to hopefully safe locations without getting in trouble when there was a cry from above. Whatever the invisible ammunition had been, it had left the dryad girl completely stranded on what was left of the western wall, and with the spot she was in, he had a feeling she was going to be the next target. Or otherwise-  
  
Heart catching in his throat, he ran across the snow just as she jumped. The angle was too awkward for a catch, and he ended up more or less being an accidental cushion for her fall, both of them sinking into the snow. “Ow. You okay?” he asked when he could breathe again.  
  
“I’m fi- _you!_ What are _you_ doing back here?” Hells. She must have either seen him get sent out on the hunt or returning the first time.  
  
“I was-” They both ducked as more stone exploded nearby, and this time, he could see an unidentifiable figure cackling madly as the guards gave chase. To his surprise, the girl threw herself off him, small bursts of lightning crackling around her hands as she prepared to join in.  
  
“Doesn’t matter. Get out of here.”  
  
“But that guy-“  
  
 _“Scram!”_ she snapped. “This isn’t the first time this bastard’s attacked this year, we can handle it. Besides, the guards will shoot you as soon as they see you, bigger threat or no, and I’m not cleaning up the mess afterwards.”  
  
Harsh words, but he could still see the worry in her face. For the briefest moment, he wondered if she’d had to ‘clean up’ those who lost the hunting game as well as looking after Bunny. And that was what made his decision. “Take care of him, okay?”  
  
That finally cracked the hardened warrior act, and she gave him a brief smile. “I do my best,” she said, before throwing herself into the chase.  
  
Swallowing thickly, Kotetsu edged his way through the gaps in the wall and headed into the forest, what he was leaving behind weighing heavy on him.

  
  
===

  
  
It took him three weeks to get back to his little cabin, mostly because he’d had to avoid any other territories he suspected might have belonged to one particular noble. He’d managed to make a few small catches on the way. Not enough to get him through the winter, and nothing worth selling, but at least he had food enough to tide him until he felt like going back out in the snow.  
  
He was fine on supplies, but sleep was another story. He didn't sleep well in the winter to begin with, never had since the plague had taken Tomoe and he’d been forced to send Kaede away to spare her catching the same. But now his dreams were also haunted by pained green eyes and whip marks and the overwhelming feeling that he’d failed again.

 

===

  
  
He’d been home for nearly a month and back into his normal routine despite the steadily worsening winter storms, when he roused from another round of nightmares with a sudden feeling of urgency. Wiping the sweat from his face, the rolled out from under the sleeping furs and headed for the door-  
  
-only to find nothing there.  
  
Damn, maybe it had just been- no, that feeling was still there. And he’d never been one to ignore his instincts. He quickly put on his outer clothes and covered his nose with a heavy scarf, then lit a lantern, grabbed a heavy knife and headed outside. Hoping to the fourth hell that it wasn’t another wolf after his stores, he cautiously peered around the shed, knife at the ready.  
  
The sight of the blood-stained snow made him pause, but it was the sorry mass of half-frozen fluff in the middle that caught his attention. Then the light from the lantern glinted off the collar the creature wore, and Kotetsu breathed out a quiet curse. Tucking the knife into his belt, he went to see if the rabbit was even still _alive_ , and made a noise of relief when he felt a weak pulse and drag of breath. “Saints. How did you even make it here?” he asked softly, but of course the rabbit couldn’t answer.  
  
It was awkward having to balance lantern and rabbit, but he managed to carry the armload into his house. He'd collected medical supplies in a town between the baron's land and home, so he had plenty to work with, and he bound the creature’s wounds as best as possible before wrapping it in furs and laying it near the hearth fire.  
  
After that, there was nothing to do but wait for morning.

  
  
===

  
  
Kotetsu didn’t remember dozing off, but when he cracked his eyes open next, the howling of the wind had stopped and there was sunlight peeking through the slats of the shutters. He also felt oddly warm, considering he’d shed his outer layers to bandage injuries, and the fire had burned down to nothing but embers.  
  
When he tried to stretch, he found out where the warmth was coming from, as the massive rabbit curled up in his lap made a squeak of alarm and latched on with sharp claws to keep from ending up on the floor. “Ow, shit, sorry,” Kotetsu apologized, catching it in his arms, and the rabbit must still have been exhausted, because it didn’t so much as give him one of those annoyed little sniffs before huddling closer.  
  
He murmured more apologies to it as he settled it back on the fur rug it had been lying on when he’d fallen asleep, then got up to go see what he had that he could feed a rabbit. Then he belatedly remembered he’d used nearly all of his vegetables two nights before to make a stew for freezing. _Venison_ stew, no less. Wincing at the thought, he pulled his outer clothes back on and headed out to see if there was anything left in the store shed. He was lucky enough to still have some grain, but while it would make a loaf of bread, it wasn’t enough to feed a rabbit that size.  
  
Stew it was, unfortunately.  
  
Those sharp, faintly glowing eyes watched his every move as he brought in one of the smaller frozen pots and hung it in the hearth to begin thawing as he built the fire back up under it. He couldn’t help occasionally glancing back in the creature’s direction, wondering what it was thinking. “Hang on a sec and I’ll come take a look at those bandages,” he said, mostly to break the uncomfortable silence, and the rabbit finally quit staring at him, curling up in a ball.  
  
Oh.  
  
Feeling a little stupid that he hadn’t thought to check right after nearly dumping the poor critter out of his lap, Kotetsu dusted his hands off and left the stew to simmer. Moving to crouch down beside the rabbit, he opened the shutters of the closest window to get some more light.  
  
Peeling the bandages away in the light of morning, he could see that there were actually what looked like shards of stone and glass embedded in the wound, and made a soft hiss of sympathy as he went to go get a tool to help get them free. “I don’t suppose you can shapeshift like this?” he asked, trying to keep bits of fur and fluff out of his way as he worked. The rabbit just blinked at him, then flinched as another piece was pulled free. “Too bad. It’d be easier, and it looks like you’ve got a hell of a story to tell.”  
  
Of course there was still no response, but he kept talking to keep the rabbit calm, pulling out sliver after sliver and finding there were also tiny bits of wood among the stone. When the last that he could find finally came free, he soothingly stroked quivering long ears. “There we go. All done. Bet you’re feeling a whole lot better already, yeah?” he asked, and grinned when the rabbit made the tiniest little stretch in reply. Checking to make sure nothing was infected, since he had no idea how long the rabbit had been carrying that wound around, Kotetsu gently redressed the injuries and gave the creature an affectionate scratch on the head, then got up to go peek into the stew pot.  
  
Once he was sure it was ready, Kotetsu dished out a bowl, then set about picking all the bits of meat that he could find out of it and putting them in another bowl for himself. “Sorry,” he apologized to the rabbit for what must have been the tenth time as he set the bowl on the floor in front of it. “I don’t really have anything else right now to giv-“  
  
He cut off, staring, as the rabbit began eating with no complaint, and more than a little haste. “Damn,” he murmured. Either the creature had been even hungrier than he’d assumed, or dietary laws were different for magical critters.  
  
Well… now that he thought of it… he had heard of man-eating deer before. Even if it had just been a tall tale -and who could tell these days without running into one themselves?- maybe a rabbit eating stew that had been cooked with meat wasn’t that weird in comparison. Deciding to just let it go for now, he ladled out his own bowl of stew and settled down to eat as well.

  
  
===

  
  
Kotetsu quickly learned that the healing process hadn’t been all the dryad’s medicines. So long as the rabbit had moonlight to sleep in, the  wounds on its back and side were closing up much faster than normal injuries of that scale would have.  
  
The only problem was the fact that that meant having to leave the shutters of a window open at night.  
  
He’d been making do with a couple of extra blankets and furs, but the cold certainly hadn’t done him any favors about the nightmares. Grotesque images of sickness and death haunted him in his sleep, and more than once he woke with a cry stuck in his throat and a cold sweat beading on his skin.  
  
The third night he woke, he found the rabbit watching him from its spot near his bed. Still numb from the shock of the dreams, he stared at it rather stupidly. After a few seconds of silent awkwardness, the rabbit tilted its head and stretched a paw out towards the bed, almost as if ordering him to go back to sleep. Unsure, but curious, Kotetsu laid back down.  
  
The nightmares came to him again, dark and sad and haunting. Just as they were getting to their worst, however, a sudden warm splotch of pale gold light flooded his mind. It surrounded the lifeless body of his wife, and Tomoe took a deep gasp of air before breathing out what looked like black smoke. As it disappeared into the air, it took her sickness with it, and when she opened her eyes, she was hale and whole and everything changed back to the day his family had gone on a picnic to give Kaede her first glimpse of the outside world.  
  
When Kotetsu woke again, he found he’d slept until the sun was high in the sky, and despite the open window, he still felt warm. He peered over the side of the bed and found the rabbit’s little nest was empty, then started when he felt something shift in bed beside him. He rolled over to find light curls of blond hair peeking out from under the rabbit fur that had been draped over his blankets, and lifted it to discover the rabbit had gone human, bandages falling uselessly around him as he slept curled up on his side. The young man twitched, either from cold or pain, and tried to curl closer, and Kotetsu bit his lip, gently running a hand over soft hair to calm him back down before he slid out of bed himself.  
  
As he prepared the supplies to re-bandage the wounds, he wondered. Had it just been having someone close to him again that had eased his nightmares? Or could the rabbit have possibly-?  
  
Well. Now that the rabbit could shapeshift again, he supposed that was just another thing added to the list of questions he had for him.  
  
Having decided it was too late for breakfast, Kotetsu was tending another pot of stew when his houseguest roused. “Oh, good, you’re awake. Now I can change those, uh…” He was sure he was going to say something else, but his thoughts trailed off for a second when the young man sat up on his knees.  
  
He’d completely forgotten that no fur meant nothing at all, and even the blond clutching said fur around his shoulders like before didn’t help in the slightest. Only when the rabbit tilted his head and gave him a slightly wary look did Kotetsu manage to knock the cogs of his brain back into place. Oh, right, bandages.  
  
But first, he went to his clothing chest and fished out a pair of pants. “Here,” he said, holding them out and trying to hide his embarrassment.  
  
“Why? The cold doesn’t affect me.”  
  
So the rabbit could speak after all. That would make questioning later a lot easier. What wasn’t easy was how even the simple query  seemed to hover warmly about his ears. Saints, what was wrong with him? He’d met attractive people before in his travels, but this was just confusing. He couldn't remember ever having this reaction just to someone's voice before, except for- “Maybe not, but it makes me cold just looking at you,” he lied.  
  
For a second, it looked like the blond would refuse, then he sighed and accepted the clothing. The pants didn’t cover up any wounds, which was good, and gave Kotetsu a respite from the sudden strange thoughts going through his head, which was better. Fetching the medicinal supplies he’d laid out earlier, he motioned for the young man to shed the fur and sat down behind him to get to work.  
  
His guest had grown used to his handling enough not to twitch away as he carefully prodded the healing wounds. Oddly enough, the blond seemed to be leaning into it a little. Rarely petted, maybe?  
  
Kotetsu decided it was too awkward to ask.  
  
“Now that you can answer, how did you even get these?” he asked instead. “Or get here? That tree girl said she would look after you.”  
  
The young man stiffened, just a little. “It wasn’t her fault,” he said with a little bite in it, before his metaphorical hackles went down. “The laughing man came again.”  
  
“That creepy bastard who attacked when I was there?”  
  
The rabbit nodded an affirmative. “Fifth time this year. He wants something from my master, but I don’t know what. But at the time, it didn’t matter. I reached my master’s study at the same time he did, and got mostly blown out of a window for my trouble.”  
  
The faint emphasis on ‘mostly’ made Kotetsu wince, remembering the bits of masonry that had been mingled with the wood. And considering what he’d seen of the place for himself, that would have been at least a four-floor fall, and possibly even over the castle wall, no less. “Damn, you really are a lucky rabbit, not dying from that. And getting here-?”  
  
“I don’t really remember. I think I hit my head, and I scented wolves close by, and I panicked at the thought of being eaten. That was the last coherent thought I had until I woke up here.”  
  
Kotetsu turned that over in his head as he tied off the last of the bandages. Of course there were always the differences, but going off what he knew about animal behavior and what he’d learned so far about the rabbit’s abilities, he could make a guess. The poor thing had been ‘jumping’ at random, trying to find his way home, or at least to a safe spot, while disoriented out of his mind and badly injured. If he was right, then the critter ending up here had been just the same luck that had kept him alive after the fall.  
  
Coming back out of his thoughts, he could feel muscles beginning to tense nervously under his hands, and decided that was enough questioning, at least until after they’d both gotten some food in them. Pulling the gold and cream fur back up over the young man’s shoulders, he gestured to the stew pot. “Hope you don’t mind more of the same. Until I can go out to hunt again or the snow clears enough to walk to a market, this and the cured stuff is all I’ve got.”  
  
“It’s fine,” his guest mumbled, accepting a bowl. “One should eat what they are given,” the blond added more calmly before drinking straight from it.  
  
Unlike everything else the rabbit had said, that was clearly a ‘taught’ response, and something about it sent a little shiver down Kotetsu’s spine as he sat down in his chair to eat his own meal.  
  
Maybe… maybe other questions could be held off until the next day. At least the big ones. As much as curiosity had been eating him, he suddenly wasn’t so sure he could handle those answers just yet.

  
  
===

  
  
Once the injuries had mostly healed, Kotetsu felt pretty at-ease allowing his guest to stay in his house without him, and besides, his stores needed shoring up. So he left a note for the sleeping rabbit curled up beside what was left of the previous night’s fire and headed out to hunt.  
  
Since tracking normal animals was as comfortable as worn-in shoes for him, the time outdoors also let him think.  
  
The day before, he’d learned the rabbit’s name was actually Barnaby. He didn’t think much of it, really, and if he were being completely honest with himself, he’d still been mostly using Bunny in his head. However, he’d been intrigued by the fact that the name had apparently been inherited from the rabbit’s sire.  
  
But when he’d asked Bunny why he hadn't sounded so sure about that fact, all the blond had done was look down at the covers in front of him and shrug.  
  
In fact, Kotetsu thought as he set the last of the snares he’d brought out with him, shutting down like that seemed to be Bunny’s response to anything that was particularly uncomfortable.  
  
Well, he was a _rabbit_ , after all.  
  
It could be helpful, though. At least he’d be able to gauge what questions were safe or not by watching his body language.  
  
He shivered a little in his hiding place, but it wasn’t from the cold. Speaking of things like body language, this weird feeling he kept getting around the rabbit when he was in human form was beginning to get unnerving. It had even begun having a little bit of an effect on the good dreams he had on the nights Bunny slept beside him.  
  
As the first snare snapped and he slipped from his hiding place to go check on it, he’d made his mind up what the day’s questions were going to be.

  
  
===

  
When he arrived back at his cabin, a heavy string of snowbirds tossed over his shoulder, Bunny had gone human and built the fire back up, and was poking at it with the iron hook he used to hang pots in the hearth. “Sleep well?”  
  
“Yes.” Bunny got up, and Kotetsu was glad to see that he’d put on pants without having to be prompted this time. Slim hands lifted the catch from his shoulder as Bunny passed him on the way to the cleaning table. A brush of blond curls against his nose during the motion made Kotetsu swallow hard, and he quickly turned away to busy himself with stowing away his hunting gear and snow clothes.  
  
Once he’d gotten the whirl of thoughts back under control, he turned his head a little. “Hey, can I ask you something?”  
  
He didn’t miss the way the blond’s shoulders tensed just a little bit, but Bunny nodded slightly without looking up from his work of stripping off feathers.  
  
“Can you re-write dreams?”  
  
Bunny ducked his head further, but Kotetsu was sure he’d caught a blush before his hair hid his face. “Not… exactly,” he admitted quietly, probably embarrassed at having been caught.  
  
So his imagination hadn’t been playing tricks on him. “What can you do, then?”  
  
“I… it’s a little hard to explain. As simple as I can make it, I exchange light for darkness. It lets the other person have good dreams, but I don’t see what those dreams are or have any control over them.”  
  
That was both reassuring and not. The fact that Bunny had considered him important enough to do that for him was nice, but at the same time, if Bunny really had no control over what he was dreaming… well, that made certain ‘good’ dreams a little more unsettling. He decided to quickly move on, and put his hands in his pockets to hide his nervousness as he went over to the cleaning table. “Is it all right if I ask you something else?”  
  
“I guess so.”  
  
“Why do you trust me so much?”  
  
“You’ve taken care of my wounds with little demands so far, so-“  
  
“No, I mean before. Why did you come with me in the forest at all? Or let me get near you in the holding room? After the way I got you in trouble-“  
  
“You didn’t,” Bunny said quietly. “Get me in trouble, I mean. I would have still had to…” he trailed off uncomfortably, and Kotetsu noticed the tension in his shoulders had gotten much worse. He carefully backed off, not wanting to spook the rabbit into shutting down again. “You’ll laugh at me if I tell you,” the blond finally said when he’d gotten himself back under control.  
  
“Swear on a sky scroll I won’t,” Kotetsu said with a goofily exaggerated sign, and that finally earned a tiny snort of laughter as the tension eased a little more.  
  
“It was your scent,” Bunny said after they’d been working in silence for several more minutes.  
  
Kotetsu turned his head to look at the blond in confusion. “My _scent_?” he asked, then remembered the encounter at the pool and how Bunny reacted before agreeing to the deal. But what did-  
  
“Humans… Humans frighten me.” He noticed that the rabbit’s master hadn’t been specially excluded from that. “And so do animal predators. But your scent is different. A little bit of both, a little bit of neither. I’m not really sure why, but it made me think you were… safe.”  
  
He was entirely at a loss as to what to say to that. Animal and human… yet neither? It couldn’t have been the smell of his hunting gear; if anything, that should have scared the rabbit off. But what was it, then? His family had all been human, at least as far as he knew.  
  
The necessity of getting the birds plucked eventually pushed the thoughts out of his head, and they remained floating off in the ether somewhere as Bunny helped him with dinner. But once the pale gold and cream rabbit was snoozing in its nest by the fireplace, they came back to bother him again.  
  
Damn, Kotetsu thought, leaning back against his bed as he watched the flames in the hearth. Now he had even more questions, and these Bunny couldn’t answer if he tried.

  
  
===

  
  
As the weather improved, Kotetsu’s nightmares petered off on their own, as they tended to with the coming end of every winter. Instead, he found himself being more often woken by the lack of a warm body next to him under the furs. At first, he’d just assumed that Bunny was going out to do… well, bunny stuff, but when he roused one night to see a soft light peeking through the slats of his window shutters, he got curious.  
  
Slipping out of bed, he pulled on his clothes and boots and a heavy coat, then snuck out the door and around his cabin.  
  
Bunny sat on the workbench outside of his stores shed, and was apparently the source of the glow. Heedless of the cold as always, he had one of Kotetsu’s snares in hand and a roll of heavy metal wire by his side. Deft, glowing fingers carefully heated the thread as he wove it into the snare, both altering the shape and strengthening it. Three completed snares already lay on the bench.  
  
Kotetsu recognized the wire; he’d bought it two summers ago to make bite-protection gloves, and then had never ended up needing them. He’d mostly forgotten he even had it.  
  
He itched to go ask what Bunny was up to, but instinct kept him put, watching as the blond finished the fourth snare. Pinching off the end of the wire, Bunny used that weird heat touch to fade the metal together to prevent sharp poking bits. Then the glow around his body receded until it was back to just his eyes, like normal. Bunny tiredly scrubbed the heel of his palm against his eyes, then picked up the wire and snares and went into the shed.  
  
Kotetsu quickly took the opportunity to get back inside and to bed before the rabbit saw anything to be suspicious of. Back to the door, he heard it softly creak open, then closed, and the familiar warm weight snuggled back under the furs beside him in fluffy rabbit form.  
  
He managed to keep quiet when he woke again just after sunrise, and gave the sleeping rabbit’s long velvety ears a gentle pet before going to get cleaned up and dressed. He’d already been planning on going hunting again that day; maybe that was why Bunny had been sneaking out to mess with his stuff for the last week.  
  
Though he mostly trusted his companion, long-honed caution  made him immediately begin going over his gear when he went out to the stores shed. He was only halfway surprised to find there was very little that had gone untouched; Bunny had been a busy little rabbit indeed. What was a little more unexpected was the careful delicacy with which everything had been handled. Even the most difficult blood marks had meticulously been cleaned way to wipe any troublesome traces of scent, and everything metal had been carefully dulled to keep it from glinting. The snares weren’t the only things that’d had their designs altered either. The fletching on his arrows had been reshaped with a different kind of feather and the heads had been shaved to be more narrow, and Bunny had apparently used that heating ability to both sharpen his skinning knives and add a slightly deeper curve to them.  
  
Kotetsu fingered one of them, careful not to let the blade slice through his glove, then slid it back into its sheath. _‘Well, then,’_ he decided, collecting his gear to go out. If Bunny had put in all this work, there was no sense in not at least giving it some trial runs. The worst that could happen was that he came home with no meat.  
  
Shouldering his pack, he headed out into the snow.

  
  
===

  
  
Tracking prey had always been the easy part. His senses and instincts had always been particularly good, even when he’d been small. He found a good spot to get started and began setting up his traps, careful to work around the new designs Bunny had created. Leaving them to do their job, he picked up his bow and went deeper into the trees.  
  
He came across his first potential prey quickly: a couple of hefty pheasants who’d decided to take advantage of the more shallow snow to look for frozen treats. Testing to make sure the new fletching wasn’t going to change the weight enough to throw off his usual aim, Kotetsu nocked an arrow and drew.  
  
It was over with a speed even his eyes couldn’t follow, and Kotetsu finally made himself take a deep breath as he stared at the two pheasants pinned to the tree by a single arrow. _Shit._ Even with his best bow design, he’d never had an arrow fly fast enough to make that quick of a kill, or to spear through one target into another.  
  
Shaking off his shock, he went to collect the birds and hide them while he searched for anything more. There was little else to be found in the way of pheasants, but when he reclaimed his catch and went to start checking his traps, he got another surprise. A full-grown mountain boar lay dead in the snow. And he could quickly see why, the heavy wires wrapped tight enough around the neck to both cut in and snap it, as well as around the leg that had tripped the trap. Actually somewhat relieved that he wasn’t going to have to try and finish off a snared and enraged boar, Kotetsu crouched to undo the wires, and found they’d tightened in a way that was easy enough for his fingers to get in and slide them free.  
  
Damn. He was going to have to have one of his chats with Bunny when he finished lugging this stuff home.

  
  
===

  
  
He hung up his catches to drain and went inside to find a large puffball intently watching some wild potatoes that were roasting in the hearth. Giving his companion a pat on the head, Kotetsu went to change out of his bloody clothes and put them in the washtub to soak before sinking into his chair by the fire. “Hey, can I ask you something?”  
  
The rabbit looked up, then was a young man wrapped in fur in a blink. “Depends on the something,” he said warily, after all the times their conversations had danced entirely too close to uncomfortable subjects.  
  
“How did you know what to do to my gear? You don’t exactly seem the hunting type.” And he highly doubted that the rabbit’s owner would have ever actually let him go out to hunt, even if Bunny had had the inclination to ever do so.  
  
Bunny blushed a little and ducked his head. “I just… _do_. I know metal. It’s not really a conscious thing, not something I’ve actually put time into learning, anyway. My master once said my sire and dam were the same way.”  
  
“And the heat thing?”  
  
The blush got even deeper at having been caught messing with his stuff. “I don’t know. There are Light-Talent rabbits who can do that, I guess someone in my family was one. But I… I just don’t really know that much about them.”  
  
Recognizing that they were veering towards the dangerous question territory, Kotetsu opted to back off at that point, leaning back in his chair. “Well, whatever it is, it sure made my job a hell of a lot easier.”  
  
“Really?” Bunny asked, eyes just a little too bright and hopeful, and for not the first, or even the fifth time, Kotetsu wondered if the blond had ever been praised in his life.  
  
“Yeah. If you could show me a few tricks for construction, that’d be helpful.” The potatoes looked like they were done, and possibly about to burn, so Kotetsu grabbed the pan mitt to rescue them. “Mind if I have one?”  
  
“Huh? Oh, yes, it’s fine. I wasn’t sure when you’d be coming back, so these were going to be for dinner anyway.”  
  
His supplies were running low on spices. It was a good thing the weather was finally changing; it wasn’t going to be much longer before he’d need to cross the passes to go to one of the village markets. He was still able to make a passable meal with a little cured and shredded quail to put in the potatoes, and some pepper. “What other things are you good with?” he asked Bunny when they’d sat down to eat.  
  
“Not much that’s particularly useful here. Um, I’m good with numbers. Measurements and pricing and stuff. I used to help Pao-lin decide what to sell her plants and remedies for.”  
  
“Pao-lin… is that the little dryad girl?” Kotetsu asked, and Bunny nodded, not looking up from his bowl. “Sounds like you two are pretty close.”  
  
“Not… not really. I mean, she’s pretty much the only one who’s actually nice to me-” like the time before, Kotetsu noticed that Bunny hadn’t remitted his master from the category of those who were to be feared, “-but we were only allowed to talk after sessions.”  
  
He’d heard that before, too, and had figured out after a few mentions that sessions meant like the beating Bunny had gone through when they’d first met. The questions practically burned his tongue to be asked, but, as he’d done every other time before, Kotetsu forced himself to swallow them back, rather than risk sending Bunny into a jittery ball of silence for the next couple of days. “I can teach you the fur and meat trade, too. You could help me decide on market sales,” he said instead. “It’s boring stuff, but at least it’d give you something to do on occasion.”  
  
After a few minutes of thinking, Bunny finally raised his head and gave him a small smile that made his stomach flutter not unlike the strange dreams.  
  
“I’d like that.”

  
  
===

  
  
Kotetsu began to notice that Bunny was oddly quiet on the issue of returning to his master. Though in both forms, he still kept the collar he wore in impeccable shape, the rabbit had never brought up the matter of how or when he was going to get back to where he’d come from. Kotetsu had decided to just let the subject lie. As far as his opinion was concerned, the longer Bunny was out of the old man’s hands, the better, and he didn’t want to accidentally trigger some kind of homing instinct by pushing the issue.  
Instead, he focused on work. Between Bunny’s metal ingenuity and his own talents, he’d amassed nearly twice the amounts of furs and other items he could sell that he’d had the winter previous.  
  
“The passes should be clear of ice soon,” Kotetsu said as they cleaned up after dinner one night. “I’ll probably be heading out next week or so to take the catches to market.”  
  
“You still have my notes, don’t you?” Bunny asked, and though the blond didn’t look up from the dish he was drying, Kotetsu could see the faintly troubled look on his face.  
  
He reached over to give his companion’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “I wouldn’t forget those, you know that. Those prices are too important.”  
  
That seemed to calm the younger man, and they finished the dishes in comfortable silence.

  
  
===

  
  
As the day of his departure clicked closer, however, Kotetsu could see that Bunny was getting more and more anxious. The blond would shake his head and insist he was fine when pressed, but Kotetsu would wake in the night to find his companion huddled closer to him than usual, fingers clutching at his sleeve as if to be reassured that he was still there.  
  
The day before he was supposed to leave, Kotetsu finally figured out the problem. With the picture he’d been presented of how obsessed with the value of the creature the old man was, he doubted Bunny had ever been left behind when his master had gone on a trip before, at least not without someone to keep an eye on him. Being left all alone in such a remote place, especially since there were predator animals that lurked in the valley, would probably be terrifying.  
  
“Hey, Bunny,” he said that evening as they warmed themselves by the fire, and the rabbit looked up from its nest. “How about you come with me to market tomorrow?”  
  
The rabbit only made a faint sniff in response, but there was no missing the way his ears twitched upward hopefully, and Kotetsu grinned as he reached down to pet his companion.

  
  
===

  
  
Of course, the decision for both of them to go had its own problems. He was sure the old noble had probably put out a reward or something for the return of his prized captive. Not to mention that any sort of animal was in danger at market. Taking Bunny in his rabbit form was definitely out.  
  
But then, Bunny in human shape wasn’t exactly easy to hide either. Between the glowing eyes and that unnaturally pretty face, he’d still draw attention.  
  
They’d ended up having to sort of improvise. Digging through some of the clothing Tomoe had made for him when she’d first been bedridden and bored out of her mind, he found a hooded scarf that would suit. He carefully brushed Bunny’s hair so that pale gold bangs took some of the focus off his eyes, then drew the hood up and wrapped the scarf so that it covered the younger man’s mouth and nose. It wasn’t a perfect fix, but hopefully it would do. “Okay?”  
  
“It’s a little itchy,” Bunny mumbled, muffled, but thankfully made no effort to remove the scarf. A combination of shirt and cloaked tunic, loose pants, and heavy boots completed the look, making Bunny look sufficiently “from the north” without overheating him.  
  
Though the passes would have cleared of ice, the valley Kotetsu’s cabin was in never quite lost its blanket of snow. That had been part of the reason why he’d chosen it when he’d moved out of the village. But it made the going a little awkward without the proper gear, as he’d discovered when he’d first settled. He’d learned, however, and the two of them loaded their wares onto a sled that was easy enough for the pair of them to pull, securely strapping down fur and bone and satchels of cured meat.  
  
“Ready?” Kotetsu asked, and when Bunny nodded, they set off, the sun just beginning to peek over the mountains.

  
  
===

  
  
The village market was already bustling when they arrived a little before noon, the weather having been sufficiently warmer on this side of the ridge to allow for small stalls to sell what preserved vegetables and crafts had been made during the winter months. Kotetsu returned the cheerful greetings of a few people who knew him, while Bunny remained a cautious shadow at his side, watching the market buyers and sellers with both curiousity and apprehension.  
  
They didn’t have to worry about finding or setting up a stall, since Kotetsu always went through the same merchant guild for what he brought in. Slipping a hand into his pocket, he palmed the notes Bunny had given him in reminder. “Will you be okay waiting out here until I’m done?”  
  
“I think so,” Bunny said, attention distracted by a woman selling honey-preserved apples. Kotetsu hid a smile as he made a mental note to visit her stall once he’d finished collecting his pay, and went inside.  
  
Haggling was always the worst part of the job, and, frankly, he would have rather faced down a pissed off boar than had to argue with the craggy-faced old bastard who’d been the guild arbitor for as long as he could remember. But the information Bunny had given him had been more than helpful, and the pouch of coins Kotetsu had under his cloak when he left the outpost had been bigger than any he’d seen since he’d been saving up for his wedding.  
  
“Hey, partner, let’s-“  
  
Kotetsu looked up from the process of putting his gloves back on, and froze.  
  
The bench beside the door was empty.  
  
Immediately, he looked to the stall that had caught Bunny’s eye earlier, but no one was there.  
  
Fighting back a rising sense of panic, he grabbed the sled's reins and pushed into the market crowd to look for the rabbit. He had to will himself not to think about all the terrible possibilities that kept prodding at his mind, images of Bunny being recaptured by the noble’s men or, worse, being caught by spirit-binders or totem sellers. Saints, what if-  
  
A familiar flash of pale gold hair glinted in the corner of his vision, and when Kotetsu turned his head, his breath left him in a deep rush of relief to find Bunny crouched beside a stall. To his surprise, though, it actually looked like his companion was embracing someone. Curious, and not at all jealous, Kotetsu made his way through the crowd to see that it was actually the little dryad girl that Bunny was hugging, clearly glad to see a friendly face.  
  
“Oi,” he called, and the pair looked up, Bunny appearing to be slightly abashed despite the scarf still hiding most of his face. He let the girl straighten up, then got to his feet as well, dusting himself off.  
  
Recognizing the warning signs of an impending shutdown, Kotetsu quickly put a hand on the back of the young man’s neck to calm him down. “Hey,” he soothed. “I’m not mad you found your friend.  Just, next time, don’t go vanishing without telling me first, okay?”  
  
“Okay,” Bunny said with a small nod, and that was when Kotetsu noticed the dryad watching them both intently.  
  
“Hey, can you go make sure that guy pays?” she asked suddenly, indicating a nearby stall. Bunny blinked, then, after looking to Kotetsu for approval, went to go keep an eye on the patron. “So it’s you again,” Pao-lin said, looking up at him. “That explains a lot.”  
  
“A lot about what?” Kotetsu asked, caught off guard.  
  
“Why Barnaby’s so different now. He never would have hugged me before, he’d just let me pet him.”  
  
Kotetsu wasn’t so sure what she meant by that, but he suddenly had an idea. “Hey, have you known him for a long time?”  
  
“About eight years. Why?”  
  
“I’ve talked to him some since he ended up in my neck of the woods, but there are a lot of questions he won’t, or can’t answer. Maybe you could fill me in.”  
  
She frowned a little as she considered that, then looked over where Bunny was quietly chiding a different man who’d apparently tried to slip a remedy of some sort into his pocket. Apparently something else about this supposed change of demeanor twigged with her, because she nodded. “Come see me when the market closes for the night. You can stay at my boss’ house, and we’ll talk.”  
  
Kotetsu blinked, processing that. “You don’t belong to Bunny’s master anymore?” It made sense, since he doubted the noble would have sent her this far out for selling, but it was still unexpected. He would have figured her to be on the list of ‘too valuable’ to be sold to another master.  
  
“Nope. I’ll explain that, too. But right now, I’ve got stuff to sell.”  
  
“Huh. Fair enough, I guess. We need to do our supply shopping anyway.”  
  
“Right, then. Back here at sundown.”  
  
“Yes, Ma’am,” he said, stiffly enough to be half-kidding, and she gave him an amused grin before heading back to her stall to send Bunny his way.  
  
“We’re staying with Pao-lin tonight?” Bunny asked when he returned.  
  
“If that’s okay with you.”  
  
The brightness of the smile was evident in the rabbit’s eyes, and it made that strange warm feeling Kotetsu had thought had faded away come back in full force. “It’s fine.”

  
  
===

  
  
The house Pao-lin brought them to was a large, surprisingly cozy-looking stone place with well-kept fences and greenhouses out near an edge of the village that Kotetsu had never really visited before, because it had mostly been inhabited by nobles who had no time for his family.  
  
“A new owner?” Bunny asked the dryad upon seeing the house, looking confused. “I thought you wanted to be bought by a binding-breaker.”  
  
“I was,” Pao-lin said with a grin as she rolled up her sleeve and held up her arm to show Bunny something Kotetsu couldn’t see. Or maybe not seeing anything was the point, if they were talking a lack of binding wards. “I just decided to stick around afterwards. The boss lets us pay for room and board with teaching him about our abilities and giving him a little of what we make off selling our wares.”  
  
“Oh, yeah? How much does he take?” Kotetsu asked, a little suspicious of the arrangement.  
  
“Only twenty per cent, and everything he takes goes straight into a fund that lets us buy our clothing and food and supplies. The other eighty is ours to spend or save as we choose.”  
  
“That’s… pretty damn good, actually,” Kotetsu had to admit. “How does he manage to make that work while owning a place like this?”  
  
“Shipping trade. The boss has a whole network for moving goods around the country. He moved from the capitol to set up an operations branch here just two years ago.”  
  
Huh. That explained why Kotetsu had probably never met the guy. Whoever the boss was, he seemed to be pretty smart. Even though the passes to the valley Kotetsu lived in froze over in deadly ice spires every winter, the village was otherwise situated in a good spot for trade routes, especially from the west where the capitol was.  
  
The gate didn’t so much as squeak as they passed through, and Kotetsu could see some wildly exotic plants through the panes of the greenhouses. Damn, those had probably cost a pretty bit of gold.  
  
“Hello?” Pao-lin called when she unlatched the door with a vine and pushed it open.  
  
“In the study, darling!” a voice called back from the stairs. Pao-lin waved for them to follow her, and they went up to the second floor, passing under the stone arches into a well-stocked little scrollery. At the heavy oak writing desk sat a dark-skinned man in elaborate clothing… and with pink hair. Kotetsu blinked, trying to shake off his startled confusion before the man looked up. When he did, it was over a pair of thin metal frames.  
  
“I brought guests,” Pao-lin said without an ounce of fear. “This is Barnaby, my cohort I told you about. And his hunter friend. Fellows, this is Dominus Nathan Seymour, my boss.”  
  
“A rabbit and a hunter,” their host said, looking very amused. Whether it was because the inherent bad joke of their companionship, or something else, Kotetsu wasn’t sure. He’d noticed the man giving him a very brief glance-over. Before he could wonder about it, or about the strangely ancient title the man used, Nathan had already approached Bunny. “Tell me, are you partial to flowers? Roses, perhaps?”  
  
“A bit,” Bunny admitted with some embarrassment as he very carefully pulled down his hood and scarf. “I was never allowed to have them very often. Too expensive.”  
  
“Shame. Why don’t you and Pao-lin go enjoy the greenhouses for awhile, catch up on things? Tell miss Karina that I specifically said you could have some moon roses.”  
  
Bunny perked up a little at the generous offer, and Kotetsu gave him a little pat on the arm to let him know it was all right to go.  
  
When the pair had left, Nathan gave him a shrewd look. “As for you, sir hunter, I think we should have a chat of our own, hm?”  
  
“Er-“  
  
The man left the room in a swish of fabric, and Kotetsu hesitantly followed. They came to a nice little kitchen, and he obediently took a seat on a stool by the cook’s bar as his host bustled about, preparing some kind of drink.  
  
“Little Pao-lin has told me quite a bit about your houseguest. I’m curious as to how he ended up with you, though. The Baron is hardly known for his leniency.”  
  
“You know him?”  
  
“We’ve done business once or twice on the trade routes. Very amicable when he _wants_ you to think of him as such, but he’s not someone I’d care to be casual company with.”  
  
That followed his general uncomfortable opinions of the man. “Well, um, Bun- Barnaby pretty much came to me on accident. He was sick and wounded and trying to escape predators, and just happened to poof near my cabin. He’s just sorta stayed with me since. It was pretty scary at the time, but now it’s not particularly exciting.”  
  
“On the contrary, I find it rather fascinating. From what I’d heard, your fuzzy little companion is quite uncomfortable with people.”  
  
“Well, that’s true,” Kotetsu said, politely accepting a steaming mug of something or another. He was a little wary of the color at first, but it smelled deliciously sweet and spicy, and first sip found it to be quite pleasant. “He said once that it had something to do with my scent, though. That it didn’t scare him like most humans or animals did.”  
  
“Ah. I’d suspected as much when I saw you.”  
  
Kotetsu looked up from his mug with a blink. “Eh?”  
  
“Tell me,” Nathan said, leaning back against the counter with his own mug. “What color is my hair?”  
  
“Pink,” Kotetsu said instantly.  
  
“And Pao-lin’s?”  
  
“Green.”  
  
“And is there anything you notice odd about your companion’s human shape?”  
  
“His eyes glow,” Kotetsu said, then frowned. “Wait, why is all that a big deal?”  
  
“Because to most people, my hair is black, and Pao-lin is a blonde,” Nathan said after he’d taken a sip. “There are only two types of humans who can see elemental spirits or auroral creatura for what they are without having to see one shapeshift in front of them. Those who have been raised in the arts of magic, which I doubt you have been-” Kotetsu shook his head to confirm that, “-and those who have some spirit or creatura in their bloodline.”  
  
Kotetsu opened his mouth to immediately refute the claim. After all, as far as he’d known, all of his family had been completely mundane and human. After a second, though, he closed his mouth and hunkered down in thought. While his brother had always been perfectly normal, other members of the family had called his instincts and tracking abilities near superhuman. And there were ancestors he’d never known much about, faceless names that had come up occasionally in stories of small town scandal. And what was it Bunny had called his scent? Both predator and human and a little of neither?  
  
Was it possible…?  
  
He swallowed thickly. “You said you noticed when you saw me,” he said hesitantly. “What did you see?”  
  
“You have just a little bit of stripe to your skin,” Nathan said, making a motion across his own cheek with his fingers. “Even to a human with magic training, it would probably just look like an unusual tanning pattern. But I’ve been following bloodlines and met enough distant hybrids that I can tell the difference. You’ve probably got some big cat in you, but it’s very weak. Possibly three or four generations removed.” Kotetsu must have frozen, because the man chuckled lightly. “Relax, honey. I’m not planning on sending it about the pigeon line. I just have a curiosity about these things.”  
  
Pao-lin had mentioned that; he remembered now. He took a deep breath, then set his mug down. “Okay. That’s good. I’m just… trying to process it all right now.”  
  
“Take your time. That will help,” Nathan said, indicating the mug, and Kotetsu managed a nod, taking another sip without really tasting it that time.  
  
The more he thought about it, though, the more it did make sense. And once he’d sort of put all the pieces, all the little strange bits and uncomfortable rumors from his childhood together, he found… he was actually rather okay with it. After all, it hadn’t really affected his relationship with Tomoe, had it? He would have to send a letter to his mother; see if Kaede had been showing any odd signs, but that was all. And, if anything, it had only helped his trade… and his relationship with Bunny.  
  
Speaking of which… “Hey, so… you’ve studied a lot of families with this sort of thing, right? Were a lot of them animal types?”  
  
“Oh, yes. Auroral creatura have a much easier time mixing with humans than elementals do. For example, my father had to have some interesting remedies on hand when he insisted on marrying my mother.”  
  
“Interesting-?” Kotetsu happened to look up from his drink just in time to see Nathan reheat his own by blowing a little flame into it. His eyes went wide, and then he cringed a little. “I really don’t want to know,” he squeaked, then coughed to regain his voice. “I… um… damn, give me a second, because that thought still hurts,” he said weakly, earning a laugh.  
  
After a few more minutes, he managed to regain his composure. “What I meant to ask is… are there a lot of… I don’t know, side effects? Like, maybe, having strange dreams around full-blooded auror- animal totems?”  
  
“It has happened before, yes. Why, have you been thinking about rabbit stew in your sleep?”  
  
Kotetsu could almost feel the blush creeping up his neck. “Er, no. Not that kind of dreams.”  
  
“O _ho_.” Thankfully, Nathan didn’t laugh at him this time. He might have expired from embarrassment if he had. Instead, the other man simply took another sip of his drink before putting the empty mug away for washing. “How long has your little rabbit been staying with you?”  
  
“Um, right around when the worst of the winter storms hit, so… maybe about two months? A little more?”  
  
“And you haven’t had any more forceful urges than the dreams during that time?”  
  
“Well, sometimes I’d get that feeling like everything was too warm, or that it was hard to breathe around him. But those seem to have mostly gone away now that he’s comfortable around me.”  
  
“In that case, I doubt you have anything to worry about. The attraction could be geniune, or it could be because you’ve never been exposed to a full-blooded creatura before, but either way, it doesn’t seem the forcing you into any behaviors that are unnatural to you or would pose a threat to either of you.”  
  
“So, just sort of let the current flow?”  
  
“For now, yes, it should be fine. If you start having some deeper concerns, you’re always welcome to come back for further study.”  
  
There was a tiny glint in Nathan’s eyes that worried him when he said that. Kotetsu had known the sort before, those who got wrapped up in subjects they found fascinating, and it had always made him a little uneasy. Though… as long as the information was helpful and he didn’t end up with a knife in his insides to see what made him work, he supposed he could deal.  
  
He considered changing the topic to asking about Bunny, since it was apparent that their host would probably have answers to some of the questions that nagged him, but just as he opened his mouth, the rabbit in question and Pao-lin returned, a grouchy-looking blue-haired girl trailing after them and scowling at Bunny as he contentedly munched on the petals of some kind of silver-white rose. “Have fun?”  
  
“They’re very good. Want to try one?”  
  
“Pretty, but I think I’ll pass,” Kotetsu said with a faint smile, already feeling better just by having his companion’s presence around again.  
  
“If you two will go store your purchases in the supply shed, we’ll get you settled into a room for the night,” Nathan said.  
  
“Are you sure it’s all right?”  
  
“I insist. After all, I’m positive we have more to talk about,” their host said with a smile that was just a tiny bit too wide. Kotetsu glanced at Bunny, who gave him a little shrug, but looked hopeful.  
  
“Okay, then. Let’s go stow our stuff.”

  
  
===

  
  
Kotetsu had to admit this tub was a whole lot nicer than the tin thing he tended to bathe with back at the cabin. And while, to his memory, Bunny had never needed a water bath in his rabbit shape, his fluffy companion seemed to agree as he splashed in a smaller, more shallow tub.  
      
When Kotetsu got out to towel off, he looked down and had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing at how much tinier Bunny looked with all his fluff drenched. Unable to hide a smile, he started to reach down with the towel, but Bunny made an irate sniff and scooted away. “Aw, c’mon, I’m sorry,” Kotetsu said, figuring the rabbit was annoyed at his reaction, but when he made another attempt at picking up the critter, Bunny avoided his hands and the towel again. “Hey-“  
      
Glowing green rabbit eyes fixed him with a _look_ , and Kotetsu got the hint to back off. “Okay, okay. But how are you gonna get all that dried? It’d take you until morning to groom the water out.” Maybe he’d change back and forth to dry off? Like he’d done the first time they’d met?  
      
The question only earned him another sniff, then Bunny huddled up very small before shaking himself like a dog. To Kotetsu’s surprise, water droplets practically _exploded_ off the rabbit, hovering around him like a small cloud. His fur fluffed almost three times its usual size before laying back down in perfect dry order, then the water droplets fell harmlessly back into the tub without touching him. Hopping out of the tub, Bunny meticulously groomed the last of the water off his paws, then gave Kotetsu an expectantly smug look, as if to say _‘See? I can handle it.’_  
      
He closed his mouth from where it had fallen open. “Neat trick. Can you do anything else with water?”  
  
That got him a headshake of either _‘No’_ or _‘I don’t know’_ , and he shrugged, going to finish drying off himself and dress.  
  
When they were both clean and comfortable, Kotetsu settled under the covers of the bed they’d been given for the night -he hadn’t failed to notice there was only one in the room- and Bunny hopped up to snuggle into his lap. Remembering what Pao-lin had said about the rabbit having not nearly been so cuddly in their old home, Kotetsu took extra care with his petting, soothing his companion into a deep sleep before carefully shifting him over to a pillow.  
  
Just as he was about to lie down as well, the door cracked open just enough for a green eye to peer in through the gap.  
  
“Oh, sorry. I was just checking up,” Pao-lin said and started to close the door again, but Kotetsu shook his head and waved her in.  
  
“It’s fine. It usually takes me a little while to fall asleep anyway.”  
  
She edged into the room and closed the door behind her, then blinked. “Wow, he didn’t even twitch.”  
  
“Huh?”  
  
“Barnaby. I’ve never seen him sleep that deep before. He’d always wake up at every little noise.”  
  
“Oh.” Kotetsu petted long ears, and got a sleepy little sniffle in response. “He still wakes up at weird times sometimes. He’s just usually really good at keeping quiet, so I sleep through it. And shouldn’t you be in bed, too?”  
  
“I’ll go in a little bit. I soaked up enough sun today that I can run for awhile longer.” His confusion must have shown on his face, because she grinned. “My kind can eat like humans and animals, but we also get a lot of energy from sunlight like plants. Sometimes during the summer, I can go for a few weeks without sleep.”  
  
“Bet you sleep a lot in the winter, though.”  
  
“Oh, yeah. They’d actually just woken me up that time you came to the keep.”  
  
At the mention of the incident, Kotetsu decided it was as good a time as any to start asking questions, since Bunny was asleep and unlikely to hear. “About that… why did the Baron have Barnaby beaten? The one time he’d say anything about it, all he said was that I didn’t get him in trouble. Any other time I start to ask, he shuts down.”  
  
“Ah. Um…” She looked down at the sleeping rabbit and carefully poked him to make sure he wasn’t going to wake, then sighed. “He’s always been like that. I mean, he’s pretty quiet normally, but when he won’t even respond, it’s because he’s hurting, either inside or out.”  
  
“I guessed as much. So why-“  
  
“Did you see the ring Nathan has?” she asked, and Kotetsu stared at her blankly for a minute before remembering that, yes, their host had been wearing a ring. He hadn’t especially put any importance in it, other than the lack of other jewelry on the man.  
  
“That’s not a diamond in it. It’s a fire star gem. The old man has a source for getting them.”  
  
Kotetsu’s eyes widened, then he made a soft whistle. Fire star gems were the best known conductors of magic, hard to find and highly prized. He’d known old men who’d saved their entire lives to get just one of them. “He’s gotta be richer than the king by now, then. What’s he doing still being a baron?”  
  
“He’s arrogant, but he’s not dumb. By playing down his role and selling these things, he builds up a lot of financial and political contacts without looking suspicious.”  
  
Oh… He didn’t know much about court games like that, but it sounded like it was a good explanation. But wait- “What does that have to do with Barnaby?”  
  
“You know how rabbits are the most magic-based of all the auroral creatura?” He hadn’t known that, but nodded anyway. “Well, fire star gems come from them. Or a very particular kind of rabbit, anyway.”  
  
He tilted his head slightly, trying to figure that one out. He’d never seen Bunny do anything that would tip him off as being capable of producing something like that. The most powerful thing Bunny had ever done around him had been the dream trick, and that didn’t sound like it could make gems. “How?”  
  
“They’re what happens when the rabbit’s tears crystallize.”  
  
His stomach felt like it had suddenly dropped somewhere around his toes. Suddenly, it all made terrible sense. Agnes’ comments about the rabbit being too valuable to kill for failing the hunt came to his mind. He swallowed thickly, forcing back the need to be sick. As he took a few deep breaths to try and regain his composure, he remembered something else. “That night I was spying on you. The thing he gave you was some of those gems, wasn’t it?”  
  
“Yes. Barnaby started holding himself back so he’d still have something left to cry when I came to tend to him. He wanted me to use them to get enough money that I could be bought by someone like Nathan, since we’re not allowed to buy our own bindings back.”  
  
“And you just let him?” Kotetsu asked incredulously.  
  
“I tried to give him as little pain as possible,” she hissed, eyes flashing in anger. “Every time I got near him with numbing agents or anything of the sort, he’d try to get away from me and end up opening his wounds even deeper. Eventually, it was either give up and let him do it his way, or not be able to treat him at all.” Calming down, she looked down at her hands. “I tried a few times to convince him to at least keep a few for himself so he could try to get out, too. It was like he didn’t even hear me. It took me weeks to even find out why.”  
  
Didn’t even hear… that sounded familiar, too, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. “What was the reason?”  
  
“The old man has a Thrall. It’s another type of binding spell,” she explained when Kotetsu just stared at her. “It’s an amulet connected to a collar that the collar-wearer can’t consciously take off. It makes them docile and loyal as long as they’re within a certain range, even though they’re fully aware of what’s going on.”  
  
“T- that’s disgusting,” Kotetsu managed to squeak. He’d heard fairy stories of such a tool; usually of princesses bound to evil old wizards they wouldn’t have given the time of day to otherwise. He remembered how Bunny had always spoken of fear when discussing humans, how he’d been visibly terrified of the two torture agents, how he’d always been so careful with the collar.  
  
It was so horrible that he almost didn’t want to comprehend it. What kind of life was that, being forced to love someone even as you knew you were being brutally used? “Is there any way we can take off the collar?”  
  
“Not without the amulet. The Thrall might go dormant with distance, but the amulet has to be destroyed to break it permanently. I considered it a lot of times, but I was never able to find where the old man was keeping it.”  
  
Well… at least as long as he was able to keep Bunny safely hidden, the Baron couldn’t just forcibly call him home or something. It was a small, cold comfort, but he clung to it anyway. He ran his fingers over soft fur, and couldn’t help a small smile when Bunny snuggled closer in his sleep. “I won’t let him go back to that. Not ever.”  
  
“Good,” Pao-lin said a little fiercely. “I’ll do what I can to help, if it comes to that.”  
  
“Thanks. And thank you for answering my questions. Sorry I kinda bit your head off a little.”  
  
“It’s fine,” she said, reaching out to pet her friend, then got up to leave. “Breakfast is an hour past sunrise. I’m cultivating the fruit today.”  
  
“Wouldn’t miss it,” he said with a faint smile that she returned before slipping out the door. Then he leaned back against the headboard with a heavy sigh before curling up on his side to nuzzle into Bunny’s fur. He still had more questions to ask, but right then, his head was far too full from all the interesting and terrible things he’d already learned.  
  
And now he had even more reason to fear the Baron hunting them.  
  
“We’ll be okay,” he mumbled weakly, mostly to himself, then closed his eyes.  
  
Sleep didn’t come easy.  
  
But the warm golden light that chased away his bad dreams did.

  
  
===

  
  
Breakfast came with a wide array of fruits and herbs that Kotetsu had never seen before in his life. “Pao-lin likes experimenting,” the blue-haired girl -Karina- informed him curtly when he mentioned it.  
  
“Is she always so grouchy?” Kotetsu asked Pao-lin after they’d taken the tray back up to the bedroom to eat with Bunny, and the dryad shrugged.  
  
“She’s probably still mad that the boss let Barnaby eat some of the roses without giving her a heads up first.”  
  
“Oh? Is she some kind of dryad, too?”  
  
“No, she’s an undine; she just really likes flowers. Sometimes we work together on the gardens, but she’s super picky about what goes in them, and she complains all the time that my experiments to make new plants are creepy.”  
  
They passed by the master bedroom on the way, and the door was still closed. “Full-blooded and half-blooded fire elementals usually don’t get up until noon,” Pao-lin said with a grin when Kotetsu glanced curiously at the door. “The sun’s gotta be at its strongest.”  
  
“So he gets power from the sun like you do?”  
  
“Sorta? There’s a lot about the differences in absorption I don’t understand. Supernatural blood’s weird that way.”  
  
“No kidding,” Kotetsu said dryly.  
  
Bunny was awake when they came in; sleepy-eyed and human and wrapped in his fur enough that Kotetsu didn’t turn pink, he gave them both a faint smile and a tired good morning. Kotetsu didn’t know if Pao-lin was aware of the dream altering power or how it made Bunny sleep later to use it, but he decided it wasn’t really important to bring it up right then. They settled in to eat, and for all it looked strange, Pao-lin’s uniquely-made fruit was actually quite delicious, especially the little round pink and white berries that had a spicy-sweet taste to them.  
  
“I’ll grow you some more to take home and preserve,” she said with a grin when he mentioned as much.  
  
When she’d gone, taking the tray with her, Bunny looked over, swallowing a last bite of bread. “Are you all right?”  
  
“Eh?”  
  
“You’ve been very stiff this morning.”  
  
He’d kinda been hoping his companion wouldn’t notice that. He swallowed, weighing his options, then figured there was no sense in lying since Bunny had been perfectly -painfully- aware of his home situation. “I talked to Pao-lin last night when you were asleep. She told me what the Baron was keeping you for.”  
  
“Oh,” Bunny said quietly after an uncomfortable minute of silence, looking at the blankets. Putting aside his modesty problem, Kotetsu reached out to embrace the rabbit to calm him before he could shut down. Bunny stiffened, then let out a slow breath against his neck that did interesting things to his pulse, but Kotetsu kept holding on until the tension in the blond’s body finally eased. “I’m okay,” Bunny murmured, and Kotetsu pulled back.  
  
“I didn’t want to push you into telling me, but I needed to know,” Kotetsu said, feeling like he had to explain himself even though his companion’s stare wasn’t accusatory.  
  
“I understand,” Bunny said. “It’s fine.”  
  
It probably wasn’t, but Kotetsu didn’t want to make the rabbit dwell on it any longer than he already had. He threaded his fingers into blond curls, petting gently until the last of the shadows haunting those glowing eyes faded and they were bright again. Bunny was still very tense, though, clearly waiting for more questions.  
  
Kotetsu thought about it, then decided it would be best to go with something simple and entirely unrelated. "When I talked to Nathan and Pao-lin, they both called you a name I'm not sure I understand. What's an auror- auroral-"  
  
"Auroral creatura?"  
  
"That's it," he said, and Bunny finally relaxed against him.  
  
"We exist all over, but for a time, northern animals were much more open with their presence. So when the empires spread and they found all these assorted supernatural animals that they'd never seen in their homelands, they assumed that we were born from the northern lights."  
  
"Huh. Kinda poetic." It was definitely a lot prettier than the term he was familiar with, but it was a hell of a mouthful. He decided he'd just stick with 'animal totem' and leave the flowery words to the others. “Why don’t you go check on our stuff?” Kotetsu suggested after a few more minutes of quiet. “Make sure everything’s still in one piece.”  
  
“Good idea,” Bunny agreed, and Kotetsu averted his eyes as the blond got up to dress.  
  
He waited a little while to give Bunny some space, then headed downstairs himself. He came across Nathan in one of the rooms he passed, situated at a table with a thick ledger and a pen and ink on one side and a plate of Pao-lin’s fruit on the other. “Good morning, or at least what’s left of it,” Nathan said without looking up, surprising him. “Did you two fare well last night?”  
  
“Er, yes. The bed was very nice, thank you.” Kotetsu fidgeted in the doorway, unsure of what else he was supposed to say or do at the moment, until Nathan sighed patiently and indicated the chair across from him. He obediently settled into the chair, watching the pen scratching across spaces in the ledger.  
  
When Nathan raised his hand to dip the pen in the ink bottle again, Kotetsu saw the ring flash and cleared his throat, now aware of what he wanted to ask. “Um… your ring. Do you know anything about the rabbits the stone came from?” When Nathan raised an inquiring eyebrow, he quickly continued. “Ah- Pao-lin explained some of the things to me that Bunny couldn’t. She… she said Barnaby was a very rare breed.”  
  
“Ah, I see.” To his surprise, Nathan took off the ring and handed it over for him to look at. The stone wasn’t huge; someone who was half fire elemental probably wouldn’t have needed a big one, but he was still pretty sure it would have cost him an entire summer’s worth of furs, even with Bunny’s help. “For starters, ‘breed’ is a bit of a misnomer, as is the term ‘fire star’.”  
  
Kotetsu looked up from the ring and blinked. “Bunny’s… some kind of crossbreed, then?”  
  
“Indeed. Barnaby is what those who’ve studied rabbit creatura call a ‘Starlight rabbit’. Only about three have existed in captivity in the last five decades, and one of them has died already.”  
  
“Okay,” Kotetsu said, turning that over in his mind. “What about the fire thing?”  
  
“Starlight rabbits actually come from a pairing of a Water-Talent rabbit buck and a Light-Talent rabbit doe. The light properties are what infuse the power, and the water properties are what cause all that power to crystallize. Before anyone knew this, they gave the stones the fire star name because of the way they seem to burn when a user channels magic through one.”  
  
Kotetsu turned the ring this way and that in his hands. Even without being able to force any magic through it, he could see through the sunlight how people would have thought it took a fire talent to make. “Are the pairings really that rare, though? I mean… this sounds terrible, but they’re _rabbits_.”  
  
Nathan chuckled. “No, I get your meaning. Rabbit creatura are much more relationship oriented than their natural counterparts, but a cross pairing between talents is common. The problem is that while the kits will often look like a combination of their sire and dam, nearly ninety-five per cent of the time, they only inherit the magic of one or the other.”  
  
“So… you’d normally get a litter of Water-Talents and Light-Talents, but not a Starlight rabbit.”  
  
“Correct. True crossbreeds of any talents are rare, but the Starlight rabbit is the only one profitable to humans.”  
  
Kotetsu shivered a little as he let it all sink in, then handed the ring back. The Baron had to have known all that in order to get hold of Bunny to begin with, but he couldn’t imagine that it was common knowledge, even among magic types. Rabbit totems, especially Water-Talents and Light-Talents, would have had much bigger bounties on them if that were the case. “How did you find all this out?”  
  
Nathan smiled. “The Baron’s not the only one with his sources. I’ve been working with someone for several years now who’s very closely acquainted with several warrens. She’s been a great help in my studies.”  
  
Kotetsu’s curiosity prodded at him sharply at the mention. “Oh? Is there any chance that maybe I could meet her? It would probably be nice for Barnaby to see someone who maybe introduce him to some other rabbits. I’m not complaining about his company, but still being so isolated can’t be good for him, and there aren’t many people I can trust with him that live nearby.”  
  
“I understand. I’ll send a message her way and see if we can’t arrange something. It will probably take a couple of weeks, though, so when we’ve set a time, I’ll have Ivan get you. In the meantime, you’re welcome to take some more supplies with you on your trip home.”  
  
“I think we’ve got more than enough to last us awhile,” Kotetsu said with a smile and a polite nod. “But thank you for the offer nonetheless, and for letting us stay. I’ll have to bring Barnaby by to visit Pao-lin occasionally.”  
  
“I’m sure she’d welcome that idea. Safe trip home, you two,” Nathan said, and Kotetsu stood and made a faint bow before going to collect Bunny so they could say their goodbyes and get going for home.

  
  
===

 

  
In the days since they returned to the cabin, things had settled into a comfortable sort of new normal. With Nathan’s reassurance that his newly-discovered instincts probably wouldn’t cause any unfortunate rifts and Bunny’s happiness at having regained a friend, any remaining uncertain tension between them had eased.  
  
Still, there were things that had to be done. There were a few supplies he’d forgotten to get that they would need if the weather took a turn for the worse. He wrote letters to his mother and Kaede to tell them of what he’d learned about his possible heritage, and his new housemate. Rolling them up, he tucked them into his coat and went to rouse the rabbit sleeping in a patch of morning sunlight on their bed.  
  
“I’m going to town for a little bit today,” Kotetsu said, petting long ears. “I won’t be going by Nathan’s, though. Do you want to come?”  
  
Bunny merely gave a sleepy little yawn and snuggled deeper into his nest. Amused by the gesture, and somewhat pleased that Bunny was now comfortable trusting him to come back, he gave soft, fluffy fur an affectionate ruffle. As he started to pull away, though, impulse suddenly took over, and he leaned down to kiss a twitching nose before getting up. “I should be back by sunset.”

  
  
===

  
  
The market was as bustling as it had been during their last visit. He didn’t see Pao-lin out with her stall, so he headed straight to the central post. Finding birds that would go to the town his family had moved to was always a pain, but he finally located a pair of returner hawks that could get the job done and purchased their services.  
  
The big job finished, he went back to the market and set about collecting his supplies. As he examined wire for making new snares, however, he suddenly got the prickly feeling that he was being watched. Wary, Kotetsu glanced up as inconspicuously as possible, and found a pale, thin man with what looked like gold scales on his face was staring at him.  
  
Once the stranger realized he’d been caught, he quickly feigned interest in the wares of the seller closest to him, and Kotetsu thought he saw some kind of circle-shaped tattoo on the back of his neck. Now fully on the alert, he quickly paid for the wire and made his way out of town. If the stranger was some kind of reptile totem, maybe he could rely on the cold of his valley to lose the bastard.  
  
By the time he was tromping through the snow, the prickly feeling had vanished. The fact that anyone had taken an interest in him like that at all worried him, but he ultimately decided not to bring it up with Bunny. For all he knew, the creepy bastard had just been a potential thief, and that was no reason to make the rabbit anxious. Mind made up, he continued on his way.  
  
Bunny was up and cooking when he arrived, the smell of cured and spiced snowbirds filling the cabin. A pie waited to be put on the fire, and when Kotetsu poked it to taste, he found it was filled with some of the honey-preserved fruit they’d bought and that Pao-lin had sent home with them. “You’ve been busy.”  
  
“I wanted to try something out of the book. Is that okay?” Bunny asked, fiddling with a spoon.  
  
‘The book’ had originally been Tomoe’s, a carefully handwritten collection of recipes from her mother and his; after her death, Kotetsu had only gotten it out on the very rare occasions that he just couldn’t deal with eating nothing but stew anymore. He’d showed it to Bunny once, but hadn’t told him where it had come from. As he flipped through the pages, though, he found no marks or smudges that hadn’t already been there before. Somewhat reassured that Bunny would take very good care of it, regardless of whether or not he knew how important it was, Kotetsu smiled. “Sure, it’s fine.”

  
  
===

  
  
Kotetsu eventually forgot about the encounter in the marketplace. With the two of them having settled into a kind of routine, and the hunting being exceptionally good now that he was beginning to learn how to rely more on his instincts, he was busy enough catching and selling that his mind was mostly occupied. With Bunny’s help on pricing and the upkeep of his tools, he now had a nice little cushion of savings to help get through the next winter, and summer, such as it was in the valley, had only just arrived.  
  
He was in the middle of stalking a young buck that had managed to avoid one of the snares, when the feeling of being watched crept back up on him. Bristling a little, he abandoned the hunt, now focused instead on finding who was tracking him. If it was the guy with scales again-  
  
A rustle caught his attention, and he scanned the nearby flora until he pinpointed which bush it had come from. Okay. Move carefully…  
  
Quick as a tiger in for the kill, he reached into the bush and grabbed something that-  
  
-yelped?  
  
He dragged the struggling thing out of the branches to find that he’d caught a small yellow fox. It squeaked and wriggled, but made no effort to bite him, and he found it had a small scroll tied to its neck with a pink ribbon. Remembering what Nathan had told him, he held the fox away from him so he wouldn’t get scratched and tried to calm it down. “Hey. _Hey_. Are you ‘Ivan’?”  
  
It took a second for the question to get through, then the fox paused, blinked at him, and yipped what he assumed was an affirmative.  
  
“Is that for me?” he asked, and got another yip. Carefully, he set the fox down and untied the ribbon to slide the scroll off. “You want this back?”  
  
The fox wrinkled his nose, which he took as distaste, and he chuckled, putting the ribbon in the pocket of his coat before unrolling the note.  
  
 _‘Arrangements have been made,’_ read the flowery script. _‘We’ll be meeting my contact in three days. Bring our handsome little rabbit with you; Pao-lin would be grateful for the visit.’_  
  
Kotetsu tucked the note in his pocket as well, and fished out some dried venison to give the fox. “Tell your boss we’ll be there.”  
  
That earned him a wagging tail, and he left the fox to eagerly tear into the jerky. The buck was long gone, so Kotetsu collected his snares to give up on the day’s hunting and go tell Bunny that they’d be making another trip to town soon.

  
  
===

  
  
Bunny had become much more amiable about the hood and scarf once they meant a trip to the marketplace and visiting, and they had little trouble getting their latest catches ready for sale.  
  
As they crossed the pass and stopped to add the wheels to let their supply sled move with a lack of snow, the considerably warmer weather made Kotetsu a little concerned. “You still okay in all that?”  
  
“Fine,” Bunny replied, muffled, but the reassurance wasn’t very strong. Kotetsu stopped and pulled the scarf away from his companion’s mouth, and Bunny made a weak little huff, a sheen of sweat already visible on his face.  
  
“Hells,” Kotetsu said, and stripped the scarf and hooded coat off so Bunny could get air. “Looks like heat’s gonna be the problem, not cold. Why didn’t you say anything?”  
  
“It’s necessary, isn’t it?” Bunny asked, still panting a little as Kotetsu carefully wiped the sweat off with the scarf.  
  
“Well, we don’t want anyone recognizing you in the market, but you getting sick from overheating is no good either. Leave it off until we get within sight of town, and then we’ll find you something lighter weight for the rest of the summer.”  
  
Bunny nodded and carefully folded the clothing to tie it to the supply cart.  
  
The coat and scarf went back on once they saw the town gates, and the first place they headed to was the tailor shop.  
  
The trade routes made for a good variety in color and material. Finding something that would make Bunny inconspicuous, however, proved to be a bit more difficult task. There were several colors that looked good on him, but all would have drawn entirely too much attention, for a wide variety of reasons. They finally got lucky, picking out a dove grey hooded shift coat that fit loosely enough and had wide sleeves to hide Bunny’s hands, and a similarly colored silk scarf. The little gold and silver stars patterned on each end of it were probably a little too much, but after remembering Bunny’s rather poetic species name, Kotetsu hadn’t been able to resist.  
  
The overall effect once clothing had been arranged was very pretty, but not enough that people would stare. The slightly feminine presentation of it could work in their favor as well, Kotetsu figured, since he doubted anyone looking for Bunny would be thinking about that sort of thing very hard. “Ready?”  
  
“Ready.”  
  
Kotetsu paid, and they headed back out into the market. This time, Pao-lin was settled in her stall with a wide array of fruits, herbs, and roots, and Bunny immediately went to greet her with a hug. Kotetsu hung back, letting them have their reunion.  
  
Then he got the itchy feeling of eyes on them again.  
  
Trying not to let on that he was suspicious, he carefully glanced around, until he saw a tall, broad-shouldered man who seemed to have horns growing back from behind his ears.  
  
And a tattoo on his hand that, while still not entirely legible, looked similar to the one the reptile man had had weeks ago.  
  
“-hey.”  
  
A hand lightly touched his arm, and Kotetsu jumped a little, finding Bunny looking at him with worry. “We moving?”  
  
“Yes. What’s wrong?”  
  
He shook his head. “Nothing. Just being paranoid. Is Pao-lin not coming with us?” he asked, noticing she was still dealing with customers.  
  
“She’ll be coming to the house once the market closes. Are you sure there’s nothing wrong?”  
  
“Yeah, positive. Let’s go.”

  
  
===

  
  
The house and its greenhouses were as lavish and inviting as ever,  the door opening for them at a touch. “It’s okay,” Bunny said quietly when Kotetsu balked a little at the crackle of magic. Taking his companion’s word for it, Kotetsu pushed the door open farther, and they walked inside, temporarily leaving their cart behind.  
  
“There you are,” Nathan called from upstairs, sailing down neatly. “I was hoping that ward would be accurate. It’s been a long time since I’ve used one.”  
  
Kotetsu wanted to ask, but the man neatly swept them into the dining room before he could even open his mouth. Trays of fruit and moon roses crystallized in sugar, as well as meat and vegetables, were already waiting for them, and he couldn’t help a faint grin at seeing the roses and berries.  
  
“You’re welcome to go ahead and eat, if you like, or we can have our introductions first.”  
  
Bunny was clearly torn between the roses and his curiosity at this ‘meeting’ Kotetsu hadn’t told him about, so he nudged his companion towards the trays. “Why don’t you go ahead? I’ll catch up later. If there’s anything left,” he added teasingly, and the young man made a face at him.  
  
“You’re telling me what’s going on later,” Bunny said with just a tiny bit of bite to it, then allowed himself to be pushed into a seat as he carefully pulled back his hood and removed the scarf.  
  
“I will, I promise,” Kotetsu said, brushing a kiss against pale gold curls. He pretended not to notice Nathan’s look of amusement at that, and followed the other man out past more greenhouses and gardens to a gate. From behind it, he could hear the sounds of barking and bleating. “Where are we going?”  
  
“A few years ago, one of my traders brought by a creatura in desperate need of rehabilitation. He’d found her in the ruins of a burned house that had long been taken over by plants, and she’d probably been there longer than the plants had. I agreed to take on the project of getting her back on her feet, and it was during our late night talks that I began learning about the social lives of rabbit totems. I sent her to live with a friend of mine as a member of his household once she’d recovered, but we’ve kept in touch for my studies as much as possible.”  
  
Nathan pushed open the gate, and Kotetsu could see a dark-skinned little girl with piercing blue eyes and hair that looked like it was made of shiny white feathers watching over the herd from a rock, shepherd’s hook tucked under one arm and the other swathed in bandages. And keeping an eye on her was a man as big as one as he’d seen in the market, with a nose ring like a bull and legs like one, too.  
  
“Is that her?”  
  
Nathan chuckled. “No, she’s a new project. Antonio’s insisted on looking after her for the time being.”  
  
Leaning over the fences that separated them from the herds, Nathan gave a sharp whistle. “Samantha!”  
  
A large, shaggy head popped up over the backs of the sheep that had been gathered near the center of the field, and then a pure white sheepdog of some kind that was as tall as his his ribs trotted around the herd to greet them, wagging her tail. Kotetsu wasn’t the best judge of age, especially not with magical creatures, but the dog had to be pretty old just by her size, yet she had a spring to her prance that would have been more natural to a puppy.  
  
“Here.”  
  
Kotetsu blinked, then looked down to find the fire star ring had been put in his hand. “Eh?”  
  
“Dog creatura don’t change from their natural forms. I can hear her just fine, but with your bloodline being as thin as it is, you’ll need this as an amplifier.”  
  
“Oh. Okay.” The ring fit a little oddly, but he managed, and Nathan bowed politely to their visitor, then opened the gate to let her in from the field.  
  
 _~All right, then. How about we head to one of the greenhouses for proper introductions?~_   a kindly female voice, as old as he’d presumed the dog to be, echoed in his head. _~As much as I enjoy this spot, there are a few too many rocks for these old bones to find a good place to sit.~_  
  
“An excellent idea,” Nathan agreed, and they set off to find a more comfortable spot.  
  
“Uh, sorry about the confusion,” Kotetsu said once they were settled at a small table in one of the greenhouses, Samantha on a springy patch of specially-grown sweetgrass in front of them. “It’s just that… dogs and rabbits…”

 _~Oh, no, I entirely understand,~_ Samantha said, somehow looking amused despite her fur hiding most of her face. _~While creatura still contain a lot of the same instinctual traits of our natural counterparts, Species animosity is one of the things that’s faded over time. We do quite well these days.~_  
  
“Dogs are both the longest-lived and have the strongest caregiving instincts,” Nathan explained. “There are a lot of other creatura clans who will request their help as nursemaids for large families.”  
  
Kotetsu nodded. It made sense as an explanation, and he’d learned to accept a lot of supernatural oddness over the past several months. “And that’s what happened with you and a rabbit warren?”  
  
 _~Yes. I assisted the Britagne Light-Talents with raising several generations of their kits.~_  
  
“So… then what made you leave?” he asked a little hesitantly. After what Nathan had told him, he wasn’t sure what topics were safe to approach, and he didn’t want to upset the old dog or make her mad.  
  
She seemed to be amiable to the question, though. _~Well, you see, it all had to do with-~_  
  
She suddenly cut off, ears and tail dropping, nose twitching at a scent. Kotetsu wasn’t sure what was going on, and was about to ask if she was all right, when the mystery was solved by Bunny poking his head into the greenhouse.  
  
“Ah- sorry to interrupt-“  
  
“It’s fine,” Nathan said smoothly, reaching out to pet Samantha to snap her out of the trance. He opened his mouth to say something else, but instead what they heard was a noise that sounded like a cross between the plaintive whine of an old dog and a soft sob of an old woman.  
  
Then Bunny was nearly knocked off his feet as she barreled into him with surprising speed, butting her head against his stomach as her tail wagged so hard it looked like it might snap off.  
  
 _~Oh, you still look **just** like her!~_  
  
Kotetsu recovered from his surprise at about the same time as Bunny, and some of the pieces of why Nathan had really called this meeting began falling into place. He kept his mouth shut, though, watching as his companion crouched to scratch ears and ruffle long shaggy fur.  
  
“You knew my dam?”  
  
 _~Ever since she was a tiny kit. And I was there when you were born and now **look** at you! You’re so **tall!** ~_  
  
The confirmation that this was someone close to his family made Bunny light up, but Nathan cleared his throat a little before they could get too deep into the reunion. “My apologies, but-“  
  
“O- oh, sorry. Er, Karina told me to find you and let you know the solar light lilies are ready.”  
  
“That’s good to hear. If you don’t mind terribly, could you help her keep them comfortable until I can get there? I promise, you two will have all the time necessary to catch up later.”  
  
Bunny nodded and gave Samantha one last scratch before getting up and leaving. Kotetsu was a little confused as to why Nathan would cut them off like that. “Um, was that really-“

 _~He’s the reason you summoned me, isn’t he?~_  
  
Samantha’s demeanor had entirely changed in the seconds since Bunny had gone. Euphoria dissipated, she stared after him almost mournfully, tail drooping and head low.  
  
“Yes, he is,” Nathan said, kind tone returning, and he got up to gently guide her back to her patch of grass. “There were a few things you mentioned during our talks about crossbreeds that could have only been known by someone who’d been around them personally before.” She sat back down, and he gently petted her ears. “I know we’ve never touched the subject of what happened at that house, and I’m sorry to make you confront such terrible memories. But we need to know how Barnaby ended up where he was.”  
  
Samantha squeezed her eyes shut with a quiet, pained whine, then took a deep breath and looked at the ground.

 _~I suppose… you should first know how his family came about,~_ she said, not raising her head. _~As I said, I had helped with several generations of light-talent kits. But Emily... was special. Out of all of them, she was the most attached to me. She was also the most headstrong little thing I’d ever been faced with, and I spent many days having to search nooks and crannies for her after she’d gotten in fights with her litter siblings. And what a little prankster, too. It took me an entire week of baths to get all of the purple out of my fur after one of her jokes,~_ the old dog added with a sad little nostalgic chuckle.  
  
 _~She’d always been fascinated by human invention and tools. When her sire couldn’t convince her not to go out to human schools to study, he asked if I would be willing to go with her as a chaperone of sorts. Of course I said yes.~_  
  
 _~It was easy enough, really. She was so engrossed in her studies that she didn’t make much trouble, and to anyone without the gift, we were just a young lady and her pet. She was so smart that she passed to apprenticeship a full two years early. And that was where she met Barnaby.~_  
  
Samantha hesitated to continue and, on instinct, Kotetsu reached out to scratch her ears as encouragement. It seemed to help a little, and she heaved a small sigh before plowing on.  
  
 _~They recognized each other as being species kin, of course, but it was more than that. They both had that headstrong curiosity, that love of human invention, the desire to **know** things. And they worked so well off each other that they improved on each other. I wasn’t surprised at all when they chose to form a mateship.~_  
  
 _~But when Emily got pregnant… that was when the hardship started. Creatura don’t have babies as quickly as their animal counterparts, and she got so sick in the process. Most rabbit creatura don’t have to revert to their animal shape until it’s almost time to deliver in the fourth month, but she had to within weeks. Being her first litter, I ended up calling in a fae midwife for help, because she was just so weak by the end.~_  
  
Samantha hung her head even lower. _~She lost the first four of the litter. Three girls and a boy. And when the last one was born, he was so tiny and sick compared to the others that we weren’t sure he’d make it either. But after all the others, Barnaby wasn’t willing to give up on this one, so the midwife gave the kit to him while we tried to get Emily stable. Amazingly enough, they both pulled through, and Emily insisted on naming the new kit after his papa for saving him.~_  
  
 _~Rabbit creatura kits grow slowly, more like human babies than actual rabbits. But like rabbits, their eyes stay closed at first. And the little Barnaby was so quiet that sometimes one of us would have to check during the night to make sure he was just still breathing. But  when he was a month old, just big enough to turn human, he opened his eyes and cried for the first time.~_  
  
“And that was when you knew he wasn’t going to be a light talent _or_ a water talent,” Kotetsu said, and Samantha nodded.  
  
 _~Realizing he was a starlight rabbit was almost scarier than when he’d been born. We all knew how valuable they were to humans, and as young as he was, he’d have no chance of defending himself. The fact that they were so rare and unknown gave him some protection, but Emily and Barnaby still put everything they had into glamours to hide his state. Just to be on the safe side, Barnaby even called in a human friend from his study years to put protective wards on their house.~_  
  
The mention of a ‘human friend’ made him and Nathan glance at each other in concern. Samantha didn’t see it, and kept going.

 _~He was only six months old when I woke one night smelling smoke. I alerted the others, but as soon as Barnaby was up, someone… someone shot through one of the windows. We’d left it open to get a spring breeze in, and-~_ She hitched, swallowing thickly, then forced herself to continue. _~It went through his throat. He was dead before he even hit the floor. Emily grabbed the kit and we ran out to flee the fire, and that was when we saw the hunters. Emily made a flare to blind them so we could escape, but they were wearing some kind of covering over their eyes. And I realized they had to be after the little one. They knew to kill Barnaby before he could mist jump us all to safety. They knew to protect themselves from light magic. And Emily figured it out too, because the last thing she told me before they shot her full of arrows was to take the kit and run.~_  
  
There were no visible tears, as like normal dogs, dog totems apparently couldn’t cry either, but the voice in his head was openly sobbing now, and it made Kotetsu’s heart clench in his chest.  
  
 _~I tried. I really did. But they knew about me, too, and the traps… I woke up with my own blood in my eyes and little Barnaby was gone. I spent weeks trying to find something, anything that would tell me what had happened to him, but the men had disguised their tracks, and ash covered the smell of everything else. So I went home. I couldn’t think of anything else to do.~_  
  
By the time she’d finished her tale, Samantha was curled up in as small a ball as she could manage, paws over her nose to hide her face. Kotetsu empathized.  He knew all too well that feeling of hopeless despair and failure that came with losing someone important despite all your efforts. He moved out of his chair and sat down on the ground next to her patch of grass, starting to scratch her ears and the back of her neck gently.  
  
It was enough to get her to at least raise her head, and Nathan reached out to rub the bridge of her nose with his fingertips. “Thank you,” he said apologetically. “I’m sorry you had to revisit that time. But there is one more question I have to ask.”  
  
 _~Go ahead,~_ Samantha replied, and Kotetsu felt her tense to brace herself.  
  
“You said the elder Barnaby requested the assistance of a human friend to hide their son. Did you ever meet him?”  
  
 _~Only once… I don’t recall his name directly. Alfred, Alend, Albert, Alec… Al-something. He had a very distinctive face, though.~_  
  
“Kinda wide-set, with a mole near the eyebrow and a heavy mouth?” Kotetsu asked.  
  
 _~That’s him. But why would you…~_ She trailed off, slowly going rigid. _~No. **No.** Tell me he didn’t- **tell me it wasn’t him.** ~_  
  
They glanced to each other again, then Kotetsu swallowed. “When I first crossed paths with Bunny- Barnaby, that man was his owner. The collar Barnaby’s still wearing was his make.”  
  
If anything, she only stiffened further, hunched in on herself as she stared at the ground. _~Don’t,~_ she warned when Kotetsu reached out. _~!I’ll bite you.~_  
  
Startled by the threat from a creature who’d been so kind seconds before, Kotetsu looked to Nathan for help. The other man shook his head with an expression that was a mix of sadness and anger, then shifted enough to remove the cushion he was sitting on from the chair.  
  
He held it out towards Samantha, and the second the cushion prodded her cheek, the old dog was suddenly a whirl of snarling, snapping teeth and ripping claws, tearing it into tiny shreds of cloth and fluff. Even with the ring, Kotetsu couldn’t hear her voice anymore, just the frustrated growls of an enraged animal.  
  
He quickly scooted back out of the way. “What-“  
  
“Remember what I said about dog creatura having the strongest caregiving instincts?”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“That loyalty streak means they _really_ don’t take well to abandonment or betrayal. This kind of explosion is normal. Just let her get it all out, and she’ll calm back down in a few minutes.”  
  
Kotetsu nodded, but was still worried. The sheer _depth_ of said betrayal… this was just…  
  
Fortunately, Nathan proved correct. Once the pillow was in such tiny pieces that there was nothing left to destroy, Samantha finally paused, head down, stance wide, heaving for breath, and shaking a little as she visibly started to collect herself.  
  
 _~Ah- I’m sorry,’ she said when she saw the mess. ‘I’ll-~_  
  
“Don’t worry about it,” Nathan said, getting up to ruffle her fur. “I’ll have it cleaned up later, and the pillow can always be replaced. Why don’t we go see Barnaby? I’m sure he’d be happy to talk to you about all the things he’s learned since our hunter here took him in and hear some of your stories.”  
  
 _~I- all right. Yes. Yes, that would be good,~_ she murmured, and Kotetsu swallowed back a sigh of relief as he got up to follow them.  
  
Pao-lin had arrived from the market, and though she and Bunny were helping Karina tend to some vibrant fire-colored flowers, they  both perked up eagerly when Nathan brought Samantha over for proper introductions. The meeting seemed to improve Samantha’s mood as well, her tail wagging as they both petted her. Kotetsu hung back to let them talk, and stew over his own worries until their host returned.  
  
“So,” Nathan said, too low for the others to hear. “It seems the baron is a bit more ruthless than we’d originally gauged.”  
  
“I’m… not entirely surprised,” Kotetsu admitted. “The fact that he was supposedly a friend of the parents was new, but that he’d kill them to get their kid… I’d kind of figured on something like that based on the things I saw or heard about. He wasn’t a good owner by any stretch of the imagination.”  
  
“Indeed.”  
  
“Oh, here,” Kotetsu said, remembering he still had the ring. “I should probably give this back, now.”  
  
Nathan’s expression finally lightened a little into faint amusement as he accepted. “I have a small fire star pendant that might be enough to suffice for future visits. I’ll have Ivan bring it by your room when you turn in for the night.”  
  
Still half in his own thoughts, he just nodded, and the other man left to examine the flowers Karina had called him to see.  
  
There was something that was still bugging him. Samantha’s mention of hunters skilled in attacking totems made him think of the creepy people with the circle-shaped tattoo. Could they possibly have been connected somehow?  
  
He decided to wait and bring up his suspicions to Nathan in the morning.

  
  
===

  
  
The promised fire star pendant had been waiting for him when they retired to what had more or less become ‘their’ room, and he wrapped the leather thong snugly about his wrist to keep it safe. The gem didn’t give him much comfort, however, and he lay awake long after Bunny had snuggled against his side and dozed off.  
  
The memory of the men who’d watched his market trips, and what Samantha had told them about the fate of Bunny’s kin danced in his mind, and Bunny’s dream-easing trick couldn’t help him when he wasn’t sleeping.  
  
Finally, he rubbed aching eyes and carefully extricated himself from the bed. Green eyes sleepily fluttered open, and Bunny raised his head.  
  
“Go back to sleep,” Kotetsu said, giving the blond’s shoulder a squeeze. “I’m just going to get something to drink.”  
  
“Mmhmnh,” Bunny murmured, stifling a yawn, then laid back down, letting him slip out into the hall.  
  
As he made his way down the hall, not planning on going anywhere in particular, he noticed light coming from under the door of Nathan’s study. He pushed the door open a little and found a full fire in the fire place, Samantha curled up on a large, soft-looking pillow in front of it. Nathan himself was stretched out on a chaise, looking over a pile of scrolls in his lap.  
  
“You’re up late.”  
  
Kotetsu jumped a little at the surprise greeting, then recovered. “So are you. I thought you needed the sun to keep going.”  
  
“I do, but this will let me leech enough energy to at least finish these records,” Nathan said, indicating the fire, then motioned him in.  
  
He settled himself into a chair by the fire and scratched Samantha’s ears when she raised her head with a little tail wag. With the weather being what it was, he was curious as to how she could sleep by a big fire with as heavy a coat she had, but after all he’d seen and heard so far, he just mentally chalked it up to magic.  
  
They all sat in silence, save for the crackling of the fire and the scratching of a quill pen across paper, then, after a few minutes, Nathan looked up. “What’s on your mind?”  
  
“Was I that obvious?”  
  
“Well, one generally doesn’t go pacing the house at odd hours unless something’s wrong,” Nathan pointed out wryly, and Kotetsu was grateful that the firelight masked his embarrassed blush.  
  
“I might just be paranoid,” he admitted, looking into the flames. “But I think… that is… I think I’ve been watched in the markets at least twice. Several weeks apart.”  
  
He raised his head, and both dog and elemental were looking at him, expressions dead serious. “Do you remember catching anyone at it?” Nathan asked. “Anything that struck you as off?”  
  
“I don’t know if they were full-bloods or mixed,” Kotetsu said. “They had the same kind of skin markings you said I do. The first one looked like he had gold-colored scales of some kind, and the other, the one from yesterday, had horns kind of like a ram.”  
  
“Anything else?”  
  
“They both had the same tattoo. Some kind of circle shape with a slash through it.”  
  
Nathan scowled at his notes. “Hn. The sword and snake. They cause a lot of trouble on the trade routes.”  
  
“Who are they?”  
  
“Mercenaries, mostly. They’ll hire themselves to any noble with enough money to act as thieves, spies, hunters… assassins, as well. Factions of them will even fight each other if the ones paying them are paying well enough. Even if it turns out you’re not the one they’re watching, the fact that they’re in this town at all is cause for concern.”  
  
If anything, the information only made Kotetsu’s stomach sink even deeper. They had to have been sent by the baron. They _had_ to.  
  
A wet nose pressed against his hand, and he looked down into worried brown eyes mostly hidden by shaggy fur. “I’m okay,” he said weakly, scratching Samantha’s head.  
  
 _~No, you’re not. I may be very old, but I’m not blind yet.~_  
  
He swallowed, but couldn’t manage a vocal denial to the blunt rebuttal. “So… what do we do?” He asked when he got his voice back.  
  
“For now, the best thing we can do is to feign normality, just in case they are looking for Barnaby. The clothing you’ve been providing him so far are good cover, and I have some charm wards we can use to try and hide the nature of his eyes.”  
  
 _~And the traveling?~_ Samantha asked. _~There are many potential attack spots between here and the valley.~_  
  
“I’ll send word out to my eyes and ears. Ivan knows the way the best, he can give instructions to any other forest connections.”  
  
Kotetsu took a deep breath, and Nathan patted him on the shoulder. Then he nodded. “All right. I’ll go with whatever you think is best. Um… do I have to do anything about the wards?”  
  
“We’ll settle that in the afternoon once I can confer with my people. For now, just try to calm down and get some rest.”  
  
Easier said than done, but he nodded politely to the pair and excused himself. He didn’t immediately go back to his and Bunny’s room, though, instead going down to one of the greenhouses to get himself a little fresh air.  
  
As he turned to go back inside, he tripped over a vine.  
  
“Ow! Hey, watch it!”  
  
“Sorry!” He had to look around a bit, then found Pao-lin settled in a tree, vines and branches growing from her body to entwine with it like some sort of swinging nest. “Wow, is that how you sleep?”  
  
“Yup. What are you doing out here?”  
  
“Just… worrying about stuff.”  
  
“You and Barnaby both, apparently.”  
  
Kotetsu blinked up at her. “Eh?”  
  
“Yeah, he was real quiet when he came back from the errand Karina sent him on. It was almost like being back at the keep for a few minutes, there. Then he snapped out of it like nothing had happened. What’s up?”  
  
Bunny had left right before they’d gotten Samantha to tell her hidden tale… could he have possibly…?  
  
Kotetsu shook his head a little. It’d be something he could ask Bunny about later. “I don’t know. A lot of stuff going on at once, and most of it’s not good.”  
  
“Well, tell me about it in the morning, so I can help,” she said, sounding a little sleepy-grouchy.  
  
“Nathan’ll probably talk to you first,” he said. “But maybe after lunch?”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
She curled up into her nest, leaves in her hair falling over her face as she went back to sleep, and he watched her swing back and forth in the breeze for a minute before finally going back to the bedroom.  
  
Bunny stirred a little in his sleep as he laid back down, and Kotetsu wrapped an arm around his drowsing companion.  
  
He was still wondering about what Pao-lin had told him when he dozed off as well.

  
  
====

  
  
When Kotetsu groggily roused the next morning, it was to an empty bed and the sounds of screeching and squawking coming from somewhere in the house. “What in the twelfth hell?”  
  
Rolling out of bed, he grabbed his shirt and pulled it on as he went out the door. When he got to the bottom of the stairs, he was met by the oddest sight. Bunny and the bull-man -Antonio, his confused mind remembered belatedly- were struggling to hold back a _massive_ white bird with a bandaged wing and legs that looked like they could rip any of them open with one kick. At the other end of the entrance hall, Pao-lin and Samantha were holding on to the ends of a vine, trying to drag away a jewel-toned creature that looked like a deer… and a bird?  
  
The pair continued to hiss and screech at each other, but Pao-lin and Samantha finally succeeded in getting their critter through the door, which slammed shut behind them.  
  
With its adversary gone, the white bird finally calmed down, and Antonio gave it a sharp glare. “There, don’t you feel like an idiot now?” the big man asked, wiping at a quickly healing bloody nose around the ring, and the bird dipped its long neck towards the floor, managing to look slightly abashed as he guided it towards the greenhouses.  
  
Kotetsu awkwardly scratched his head, still slightly boggled by the scene he’d just witnessed, then approached Bunny. “Do I even want to know what _that_ was about?”  
  
“Territory dispute,” Bunny replied, sounding a little bit winded. “They managed to not destroy the _entire_ kitchen, though, so there’s still breakfast if you want any.”  
  
He was sure he saw the barest twitch of a smile in that, and couldn’t resist pouncing on it. Even as much as Bunny had warmed up in the months they’d shared a roof, such comfortable humor had always been beyond the rabbit. “Was that a _joke_ you just told?” Kotetsu teased. “The world _has_ turned upside down today.” Bunny quickly turned away, but not fast enough to hide the traces of pink that rose in his face.  
  
“Quiet,” the blond mumbled with no real bite, and Kotetsu just chuckled as he followed his companion to the kitchen.  
  
There was enough remaining of a chilled honey-and-fruit soup and some sweet rolls to make a very delicious breakfast, and with Bunny settled beside him and contentedly munching on some more  moon roses, Kotetsu was almost able to forget the circumstances of the night previous.  
  
Almost.  
  
“Hey, Bunny, can I ask you a question?”  
  
It was their old ritual revived, but Bunny, apparently thinking Pao-lin had solved all the painful mysteries so he wouldn’t have to, simply nodded around a mouthful of sugary petals.  
  
“Did something happen yesterday that upset you?” Kotetsu asked, trying to hedge around the subject, since he wasn’t sure whether or not Bunny’s shutdowns would be a problem. “Pao-lin said you weren’t looking too good when you went to deliver Nathan’s reply to Karina.”  
  
Bunny swallowed, then looked down at the flowers he was eating. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said quietly, but Kotetsu could see the tremors.  
  
Now more sure than ever that Bunny had heard the fate of his parents, and not willing to push the rabbit too far, Kotetsu reached out and lightly petted blond curls, hand drifting down to his companion’s neck. “Hey, don’t worry about it,” he said, giving a gentle squeeze. “We’ve all been a little on edge lately, maybe she just thought she saw something.”  
  
Bunny nodded, still tense, but once Kotetsu went back to eating, he slowly began to calm back down. By the time Karina came to tell them Nathan wanted to see them, the nervous chill between them that always came with the questioning ritual had warmed back up.  
  
Nathan was waiting for them in the study, and smiled when they came in. “The good news is, a warding to mask your eyes will be relatively simple. In fact, thanks to several resident energy manipulators, I believe I have the best possible tool for the job already.”  
  
“And the bad news?” Kotetsu asked.  
  
“Your eyesight might have to adjust a bit.”  
  
Bunny looked between them both, confused. “What’s this about?”  
  
“Er, we may have to look into more disguises,” Kotetsu said. “There are some sneaky types roaming about, and even if they’re not after you, Nathan thinks it’s best we cover our tracks a little more.”  
  
“Oh. Well, that sounds reasonable enough, I suppose… how much adjustment are we talking?”  
  
“Let’s find out.”  
  
From a slim box, their host removed a pair of spectacles, the glass in them tinted the same soft grey as Bunny’s coat and scarf. Nathan carefully slipped them onto the rabbit’s face, then stepped back. Almost instantly, the ever-present glow of bright green eyes vanished, leaving them looking perfectly normal behind the glass. “Well?”  
  
Bunny blinked a few times and scrunched his nose as he tried to get used to the feel. Though he missed the glow already, the motion was almost embarrassingly cute, and Kotetsu quickly had to turn a laugh into a cough when the blond gave him a small scowl.  
  
“The weight and the shape don’t seem to be a problem,” Bunny said finally. “They do make my eyes hurt a little, though.”  
  
“With any luck, you’ll only have to wear them in the marketplace,” Nathan said. “That will cut down on the aching a bit. All the same, I’ll ask Pao-lin to cook up something for you to take coming and going to help.”  
  
“Thank you,” Bunny said politely, toying with the glasses.  
  
“Do we owe you anything?” Kotetsu asked, and Nathan shook his head.  
  
“Consider it either a belated or an early birthday present,” Nathan said airily. “Besides, what kind of host would I be if I didn’t keep my guests safe? Now shoo, both of you. I have inventories to update.”  
  
As they headed back downstairs, Bunny was still toying with the glasses, and finally had to take them off, the light from his eyes erupting back with a vengeance.  
  
“Still hurting?”  
  
“A little. I don’t really mind it, though, if it means going a little less noticeable.”  
  
“Plus they’re working on a headache medicine for you.”  
  
“Mmhm.”  
  
Bunny had a solemn look on his face as he contemplated the glasses, an expression Kotetsu remembered from months previous. What Pao-lin had said about the blond looking like his old, silent self came to mind, but before he could ask, there was a sudden screech, and something bright blue with lots of feathers shot past them.  
  
Realizing it was the critter from before, Kotetsu stared as it flapped up to perch on the bannister of the landing, hissing at a very annoyed Karina. “What _is_ that thing?”  
  
“A _mistake_!” Karina snapped irritably, before trying again to snare the creature. It squawked at her and took to air again, and she made an indignant squawk of her own as it actually bounced off her in an almost taunting gesture before streaking off down another hallway.  
  
“It’s a constructed hybrid,” Bunny said as the undine gave chase after the critter.  
  
“A what?”  
  
“A species formed by human magic. Samantha explained earlier when I ran across it. Some idiot got it into his head to create a new type of pet for nobles. Problem was, the result was extremely stubborn, territorial, and they breed like-“  
  
“Rabbits?”  
  
The look Bunny shot him was unamused. “I was going to say field mice.”  
  
“Oh, okay,” Kotetsu said, not the least bit sorry. Especially not when Barnaby made the same little offended sniff noise that he often did in rabbit form.    
  
Despite Bunny’s scowl, the teasing seemed to have eased whatever weight had settled itself on his back, and he made no complaint when Kotetsu squeezed him around the shoulders as they went to go find Pao-lin and begin making plans for their trip back to the cabin.

  
  
===

  
  
The summer passed without incident. Though Kotetsu still occasionally got the feeling they were being spied on in the markets, Bunny's new glasses appeared to be doing their job. The first of the fall storms came and went, so they decided it was time to make one last trip for supplies before the pass was sealed off by ice for the winter.  
  
With the chill coming in hard and fast, they switched out for their heavier clothes and went out to make checks. As Kotetsu tucked the list of needed provisions and other small essentials up his sleeve, something draped around his shoulders. Looking down, he was surprised to find Bunny's pelt wrapped over his coat like a cloak. "Without anything to sell, we don't have a way to hide it until we're finished at the market," Bunny pointed out. "And with the way the wind is picking up, you'll need it anyway."  
  
"True," he admitted. It was already looking like this winter was going to be worse than the last one. Grateful for the loan, he mentally made himself a note to look at thicker clothing when they made it to market.  
  
The trek was arduous, the rain and sleet from the night before having frozen over the mud, and they crunched doggedly through the crust as they made their way to the pass. Understandably, the market wasn't nearly as crowded as it had been on their last visit three weeks before, since most of the produce had already been sold before the frost, and those that were out in their stalls were huddled under heavy blankets and furs against the biting wind.  
  
Necessity of getting home as soon as possible meant no visiting, so they moved quickly from stall to stall and shop to shop, Bunny keeping watch over their supplies during each trip. They'd just finished with their last stop, and Kotetsu was retying the straps on the sled to make sure everything was secure, when there was a commotion from another street.  
  
A figure in a heavy cloak burst through a knot of people with two of the local guard hot on his heels. Bunny moved to dodge out of the way, but the stranger went in the same direction and they collided, hitting the dirt path hard. Barely even slowing down, the stranger, now revealed as a man, threw himself to his feet in an effort to continue his flight to freedom, and was immediately pounced on by the guards.  
  
"Saints, are you okay?" Kotetsu asked, going to help his fallen companion.  
  
"Fine," Bunny said, but when he started to push himself to his feet, Kotetsu saw the glow erupt from under his hood.  
  
Shit, where had his glasses-  
  
Looking around, he saw them shattered in the dust where they'd been trodden on, either by the man who'd been trying to flee, or by the guards. Dammit. "Bunny, try and hide your eyes with the hood," he muttered softly, sticking close to his companion in an effort to block any view from the other side. Bunny nodded, ducking his head, and they headed for the gates.  
  
An uncomfortable feeling made him glance back over his shoulder as they left, and he saw the man being hauled off by the guards.  
  
He tried to tell himself it was just his imagination, but he'd swear the man looked in their direction and _smiled_.

  
  
===

  
  
Despite the confusion in the market, the trip back home was uneventful, save for the wind. They hurried to unload and unpack everything, arranging tools and preserved food in the curing shed and stuffing clothing into the locker at the foot of the bed. Once they'd finished with everything, they had a well-earned meal and decided to turn in early. Bunny changed to his natural shape, and they curled up together under the furs and blankets as the wind beat against the shutters.  
  
He wasn't sure what woke him, but when Kotetsu opened his eyes, it was still dark outside, and the wind had stopped. He intended to just roll back over and go to sleep, then felt Bunny strangely rigid beside him. The rabbit's eyes were wide open, almost unnaturally so, when he pulled back the covers, and when he tried to shake his companion, he could feel the creature's heart pounding way too fast under the thick fur. "Bunny-"  
  
Quick as lightning, Bunny was suddenly human again, and Kotetsu found himself enveloped in a cold grey fog. Bunny's mist-jumping ability. He'd become familiar with it in the past months since their first visits to Nathan. But why-  
  
The fog cleared, and Kotetsu crashed into the snow in his sleep clothes. Almost unable to move, he managed to raise his head, and found himself staring into a masked face, red eyes glowing out from the black slits. And there was more red from somewhere behind the figure.  
  
A crossbow raised, aiming at his face, but before the stranger could fire, the fog enveloped him again and again, ducking and dodging around more masked and cloaked figures before he and Bunny both were hidden in the forest. Bunny draped his fur around Kotetsu's shoulders, trying to lend him some warmth and himself heedless of the cold as always as he peered through the bushes, still rigid and tense.  
  
Huddling as deep into the pelt as he could, Kotetsu opened his mouth to ask what the hell was going on.  
  
Then he saw the flames.  
  
He went numb for an entirely different reason as he saw the fire blaze up into an inferno, swallowing his cabin. The intruders had also lit up the curing shed, and the rancid smell of burning meat and fur flooded the air with the smoke.  
  
His stomach felt like it had a n iron weight in it, sinking almost all the way to his toes. Tomoe's things were there. He'd had them warded, but for a fire _this_ big, he didn't know-  
  
"Fan out and search, and don't stop until you find the brat! He can't have gone far with that kind of dead weight!"  
  
They wanted Bunny.  
  
Kotetsu clenched his hands almost until nails drew blood. Of _course_ they wanted Bunny. He cursed himself for having not taken the incident in the market more seriously, for not having thought to looking into guarding the cabin as well as hiding their looks. He made a soft growl in his throat, but it turned into a wheeze as the wind kicked back up, blowing the smoke away from them and turning the air even colder.  
  
"We... we have to get out of here," Bunny said softly, hesitantly, as though he wasn’t sure about making him leave. Hands settled on his shoulders, and he could feel Bunny trembling despite the lack of effect cold had on him.  
  
There was still that small, panicking sliver of him that didn’t want to go, not until he knew whether or not Tomoe’s things had survived, but the rational part of him took over. He couldn’t stand this cold, and they had to hide from the hunters. “Can you get us to Nathan’s?”  
  
"It'll take at least ten or so jumps, but I can do it."  
  
"Then let's go."  
  
He forced himself to close his eyes and not keep staring into the fire as the fog enclosed him again.

  
  
===

  
  
The rest of the night passed in a dizzying blur, and when Kotetsu cracked his eyes open the next morning, he honestly couldn't remember much of it. For a brief moment, he thought -hoped- that it might have simply been a nightmare that Bunny hadn't caught. But as his senses came back to him and his vision sharpened, he found himself in the room Nathan had given him and Bunny, and his heart sank. "Not a dream," he sighed, then rolled over.  
  
Bunny wasn't there.  
  
Despite the chaos of the night before, Kotetsu tried not to be too alarmed at first. It was pretty late in the morning for him to have slept; Bunny had probably just gone for breakfast, that was all.  
  
But after he'd checked in one by one with the house's occupants he knew, he was considerably more concerned. No one had seen Bunny at all, save the Lunar Bird that Antonio was looking after, and her information that that Bunny had walked into one of the greenhouses and vanished just after dawn made a cold sweat begin to form on his skin.  
  
Had the Baron come calling? Brought the amulet close enough that the Thrall in Bunny's collar had reactivated?  
  
Panic almost sent him out to try and track down the rabbit himself, but Nathan had given him the sensible advice -and a thump on the head- that sending out searchers would be a better idea.  
  
Anxious as Kotetsu was, he couldn't argue with that.  
  
Even so, he spent the rest of the day mostly pacing the bedroom.  
  
Night fell with no word from any of the forest scouts Nathan had sent out. Kotetsu sat on his bed and was staring dismally out the window into the cloudy darkness when, suddenly, he felt and heard a familiar rush of air. Turning quickly, he saw glowing eyes in the shadows, and reached out to light a lamp. "Bunny-"  
  
"I'm going back to the keep," Bunny said quietly, cutting him off.  
  
Kotetsu stared at him, not sure he'd heard correctly. "You're _what_?"  
  
"I'm going back to my master."  
  
Hearing Bunny use that term for the old man made him feel somewhat ill. He got off the bed, not bothering with the lamp, and approached the blond. "Why? Is it the collar?"  
  
Bunny said nothing, and wouldn't look him in the eye.  
  
A flash of anger suddenly swelled up in his chest for reasons he couldn't name, and before he could think about it, he reached out to grab the rabbit's arm. He found Bunny was holding something, but took no notice of it. "Why, then?" he demanded.  
  
There was still no response, and the anger grew stronger, fueled by the last several hours of desperation and fear and loss. "If it's not the collar, then _why_?" he snapped, voice getting louder. "Now that life out here isn't as comfortable as you thought, you're giving up?"  
  
"Kotetsu-" Bunny finally said, sounding strained as he made an attempt to pull his arm free, but Kotetsu held on tighter.  
  
"Or is it some masochistic urge that's popped up all of a sudden? See a house on fire, miss getting burned? Suddenly start missing your dear old-"  
  
A soft clattering sound managed to break through the verbal spew where Bunny's voice hadn't. Kotetsu paused at the unfamiliar noise, brain finally catching up enough to see that Bunny wasn't even looking vaguely in his direction, but had his head bowed towards the floor.  
  
The clouds had finally moved, and in the thin, pale glow of the moonlight, he could see that something glistened on the floorboards.  
  
Gemstones.  
  
Bunny made a hitched gasp, and Kotetsu quickly released his arm, a wash of guilt sliding through him. "Dammit. I'm-"  
  
"I don't miss him. I _don't_. I _hate_ him," Bunny said as more stones fell to the floor. Looking closer, Kotetsu found he and the cloth sack he clutched were dusted almost head to toe in ash, cinders turning his fur and skin and hair a dull shade of grey that looked almost lifeless in the light.  
  
"I hate him." Pain and misery turned the rabbit's voice into a weak rasp, his body trembling as he tried to regain his composure.  
  
And failed.  
  
"I hate him, I hate him, _I hate him!_ " Bunny nearly howled before breaking down into sobs. Tears spilled freely into puddles of stones as all the pent up fear and loathing of his former master bubbled to the surface after so many months of carefully dancing around the subject.  
  
His anger completely abandoned, Kotetsu folded his shaking companion into a tight hug, and Bunny dropped the bag to clutch at his shirt.  
  
"No matter what he takes from me, it's never _enough_ for him! If I don't go back, he's never going to _stop_ until _all_ of you are-"  
  
A fresh burst of anguish robbed the rabbit of the ability to finish what he was going to say, and Kotetsu held on tighter, lowering them both to sit on the floor when Bunny's legs buckled. Stones fell to get lost in the folds of his clothes or Bunny's fur, but he said nothing about it, just continuing to hold the younger man as he cried.  
  
When Bunny had finally worn himself down to the occasional sniff, they just continued to sit there, clinging to each other. "I'm sorry," he finally mumbled. "I made a mess of your clothes."  
  
Kotetsu couldn't help a slightly incredulous laugh, and began running his fingers through his companion's hair, sifting out ash. "I should be the one apologizing. That stuff I said was stupid and cruel. I wasn't thinking."  
  
A click made him look up to see Pao-lin peeking in, looking both relieved to see Bunny, and concerned. "What's going on?" she asked.  
  
"Me being an idiot," Kotetsu replied. "Could you maybe get Bunny something to help him calm down? Tonight's not going so well," he added before she could ask what the hell he was talking about.  
  
She frowned slightly, then nodded, and the door closed.  
  
"That isn't necessary," Bunny said, sounding a little hoarse from crying as he raised his head.  
  
"Yes, it is." Kotetsu carefully wiped some of the wet-streaked ash from his partner's face. "Look... we'll figure something out. If staying in one place like we were is too dangerous, well, we'll just keep moving. A hunter's gotta be able to be mobile, you know?"  
  
"But winter will be here soon, and everything's gone. I can manage, but you-"  
  
"We'll get more somehow. If nothing else, we've got plenty of stock for Nathan to sell for us," Kotetsu teased, holding up one of the fire star gems Bunny had cried, and that finally earned a weak little laugh from the rabbit. Then Kotetsu turned serious and rested their foreheads together, ignoring the soot. "We'll make it, okay?"  
  
There was a long silence as Bunny hesitated, fingers clenching and unclenching in Kotetsu's shirt. Then he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, calming down a little. "Okay," he murmured.  
  
Kotetsu squeezed the rabbit, then got to his feet, more stones clattering on the floor as they fell from his clothes. Bunny couldn't help laughing again, especially when the din repeated as he got up himself and the same happened with his fur, and Kotetsu grinned, glad to feel a little of the tension easing, even briefly. "Come on. You need a bath and to wash out your fur, and I need to clean up and change."  
  
"All right," Bunny said, heading for the tub, and Kotetsu lit the lamp so he could see to prepare the fire for hot water.  
  
Bunny had settled into the bath, and Kotetsu had shed his shirt and finished wiping off the ash that had transferred to him when there was a tap at the door. Poking his head out, he found Pao-lin had returned with a tray.  
  
"You owe me an explanation later," she said, handing it over.  
  
"Duly noted. Uh, this is a lot," he said, looking over the small spread she'd supplied. "I just asked for-"  
  
"Pink cup and teapot are for Barnaby," Pao-lin interrupted, pointing to the pair in question. "Both pots have valerian and chamomile tea, but I put some moon rose pollen in his as well. The cookies and stew are for both of you, since I _know_ you didn't eat today, and _he_ probably didn't either."  
  
"Thanks," Kotetsu said honestly, and she gave him a very gentle solidarity punch in the arm before leaving. When he'd closed the door, Bunny had gotten out of the bath, and they both worked to clean out his pelt before sitting down to eat.  
  
The herbal combination seemed to work as Pao-lin had expected it would, or perhaps they were both just that exhausted after the events of the past two days. Either way, by the time they'd finished dinner, Bunny was blinking sleepily, and made no protest about being herded to bed. Kotetsu, however, took a moment to grab the bag that had been left on the floor after their fight.  
  
Curious to see what Bunny had found so important, he peered into the bag, and his breath caught.  
  
Tomoe's recipe book. And their rings. And the blanket she'd made while she'd been ill. It wasn't everything he'd had left after she'd gone, but the wards on these had held. And Bunny had-  
  
He looked over to see that his companion had already fallen asleep. Taking a deep breath, he hugged the book to his chest, then carefully took everything out of the bag and arranged it all on a stool where it would be easy for them to pick up and pack. Then he crouched down and gathered all the fire gem stones into the bag to give to Nathan later.  
  
Finally, as the clouds rolled in to cover the moon once more, he blew out the lamp and left the remaining embers in the fireplace to burn down, crawling into bed with Bunny.

  
  
===

  
  
In the morning, it was agreed that time was not on their side. Whether or not the Baron actually had the clout or a writ of search to challenge Nathan, the sooner they could get moving, the better.  
  
Breakfast was quick, and then Karina took their measurements and scooted off to the tailor shop in hopes of finding something that would at least be passable until they could stop somewhere else. Antonio took the hunting gear list and headed into the town.  
  
That left just the packing of provisions to tide them until the first hunt. Pao-lin insisted on helping with that. She and Bunny went about picking and choosing small packages of what would keep them on their feet the longest. Kotetsu saw her sneak in a packet of dried moon roses and fire lilies and a pouch of the pink and white berries behind Bunny's back, and a slightly wistful smile crossed his mouth before he turned away at the sound of Nathan's approach from upstairs.  
  
"This map has the locations of all those in the mountain area who are part of my trader network. This seal on it will get you either provisions and board, or free passage with any of them. If you have any trouble, it also can ask as a communications summon."  
  
"Thank you," Kotetsu said, accepting the map while Pao-lin and Bunny hugged a fierce goodbye.

Nathan ruffled their hair affectionately. "The others should have your new things ready to go outside. Good luck, you two."  
  
"Come back and visit when you can," Pao-lin added, and they both bowed politely before going outside.

  
  
====

  
  
The weather was fair for the first two days of their journey. Since both of them could traverse in the woods fairly easily, they avoided the main travel paths as much as they could. Though it had snowed somewhat on this side of the pass, it hadn't gotten cold enough yet for hunting to be especially difficult, so between what Kotetsu could catch and a sparing bit of the packs Pao-lin had given them, they ate well.  
  
On the third day, the winds from the north began to pick up.  
  
By the fourth day, they were being attacked with freezing rain that fused to the snow and made a thick crust that was hard for them to crunch through. Kotetsu checked the map and found that the next possible stopping point was still several hours away, so they opted to bunk down under the shelter of some rocks. Bunny curled around him and covered them both with his pelt, and Kotetsu buried his face into the crook of the rabbit's neck to keep his face from getting stung by the wind.  
  
After a thoroughly uncomfortable night spotted with little sleep, the storm finally subsided, and they continued on their way.  
  
Two weeks into their journey, and the only thing that had given them trouble was the weather -while it had finally warmed up a little, that just meant having to tromp through cold mud instead of snow- until they came to the inventor's house.  
  
Kotetsu disliked him on sight. The man exuded an aura of arrogance, and while whatever magical studies he'd done apparently hadn't made him powerful enough to see Kotetsu's partially-human status, he'd made no secret of his disdain for Bunny. He'd refused to allow the rabbit in the house, sending them to a large shed on the property that was full of equipment, and neither of them missed the mutter of 'filthy beast' when the shed door closed behind them.  
  
"Maybe we should just keep going," Bunny murmured, looking around the shed. "Sleeping on the ground again can't be any worse than staying here."  
  
"Agreed," Kotetsu said, not even bothering to untie their packs. "Come on, let's get going before it gets too dark."  
  
It took some force to leverage open the door, but he finally got it to give way, and the two of them headed out, Bunny carefully closing the door behind them. As they reached the edge of the property, Kotetsu got the feeling of eyes on their backs, and glanced over his shoulder to find the man watching them through a window, an expression of disgust on his face and a weird green glow coming from somewhere off behind him.  
  
An uneasy feeling crept up through his stomach into his chest, and when he looked over at his companion, Bunny had a concerned expression on his face, too. "What is it?"  
  
"I'm not sure. It might be- nevermind. Let's just get out of here."  
  
That didn't help the discomfort, but Kotetsu nodded, and they headed off into the dusk-shadowed forest.  
  
Two more days of travel passed without incident, and finally, their worries began to ease a little. Kotetsu left Bunny to keep watch over their things and do some maintenance on the hunting gear, and went out himself with his short bow to catch dinner.  
  
He'd only gone over the next hill when he heard a noise that instantly put him on alert.  
  
Horses.  
  
Moving quickly, too.  
  
Suddenly getting hit with dread, he quickly turned and bolted back to the camp, where he found Bunny hunched over the snare he'd been working on. "Change of plans; we gotta get moving again."  
  
"I can't."  
  
Kotetsu swallowed, then went to crouch by the rabbit, feeling him shaking when he put a hand on his shoulder. "What do you mean, you _can't?_ Did the snare hurt you, or-"  
  
Bunny raised his head, and Kotetsu's heart froze at the blank, expressionless calm that had come over the rabbit.  
  
That could only mean one thing.  
  
"No," he said weakly.  
  
"Run, and run fast. He'll be here soon."  
  
"Bunny, you have to get up. We can get out of range, we'll-"  
  
Bunny shook his head slowly, and Kotetsu bit his lip as the truth slowly sank in. Those horses he'd heard. They were coming too fast for them to run, and Bunny could feel it.  
  
"Go," Bunny insisted, a flicker of fear breaking through the clouds in those glowing green eyes. "If you're still here when they arrive, they'll kill you."  
  
"I'm not leaving yo-"  
  
 _"Go!"_ The fear grew stronger, and the trembling grew worse as Bunny struggled against the collar's influence, and now Kotetsu could hear hoofbeats approaching again. "I don't want you to die," Bunny said more quietly, fingers clenching into his pelt in a futile attempt to ground himself. "Just go."  
  
Kotetsu hesitated, then clenched his jaw and grabbed his pack, leaving behind the snare in Bunny's lap and the rabbit's own clothes and food. He bolted across the wet clearing, barely managing to hide himself in the brush and bushes before the first horse broke the treeline.

Peeking through the branches, his breath hissed through his teeth in a hate when he saw who was in the Baron's hunting party.  
  
The inventor. The one who'd seen himself as so superior to Bunny.  
  
A low, almost inhuman growl built up in his throat as he itched to stab the lowlife who'd sold them out, but he forced himself to stay hidden as the Baron dismounted and approached Bunny. His stomach turned when blunt fingers lifted the rabbit's head by the chin.  
  
"You'll be paying me back in full for all the funds and trouble I've spent finding you," the Baron said, not even bothering with any sort of greeting.  
  
Bunny visibly shuddered, then bowed his head without a fight. "Yes, sir," he mumbled obediently, and Kotetsu felt even sicker.  
  
Two of the other riders dismounted with rope and chain leads, and when they pulled back their hoods, Kotetsu couldn't help a noise of surprise. Even after almost a year, he recognized the laughing man on sight. But why in the fourth hell would be he working with the Baron now?  
  
As the two bound up Bunny's hands and neck for travel, the laughing man leaned over to mutter something to the Baron.  
  
A curt nod from the noble was all the warning Kotetsu got before the ground suddenly exploded beneath him. He thought he heard Bunny cry out in alarm, or maybe it was just the ringing in his ears as he was flung through the air with dirt and rocks and brush.  
  
Pain exploded through his skull as he crashed into something heavy and solid-  
  
-then the world went black.

  
  
===

  
  
When he began to come back around, the first thing Kotetsu was aware of was cold and wet. Then something else wet that swiped across his nose. Making a face, he reached up blindly to brush whatever it was away, and got another swipe for his trouble. The ringing in his head slowly started to fade, and what replaced it was an entirely too eager chant of _~Wake up! Wake up, wake up, wake up! Waaaaake up!~_  
  
Painfully cracking his nose open, he found himself staring at a black wet nose and a yellow blur that resolved itself into an entirely too energetic dog. _~You're awake!~_  
  
"Ngh," Kotetsu muttered, then slowly rolled onto his stomach to spit out mouthfuls of dirt as the dog pranced around him, sniffing curiously. His head and ribs both ached fiercely, but he forced himself to sit up, and was presented with an eye-full of dog nose again.  
  
 _~Hello, and again, hello! My name is Keith, who are you?~_  
  
"Kotetsu. Are you always this... _bouncy_?"  
  
 _~What do you mean?~_ the dog asked, tilting his head.  
  
"Nothing. Are we close to a town?"

 _~Oh, no. My master and I came out so he could go fishing in the pond a little ways away from here before it froze over for the winter. But he has been stomping around being mad for awhile because a big scary noise made everything go hide.~_  
  
At that, Kotetsu slowly, gingerly heaved himself to his feet and could see an old, bushy-browed man with blond and white whiskers sorting through some tackle gear.  
  
 _~You have neat stuff!~_  
  
He turned his head to find the dog sniffing at what remained of his pack, blown apart by the explosion. A pang of worry hit him, and he went to sort through his things. He managed to recover Tomoe's bag, but he couldn't find the map Nathan had sent him, and most of the rest of it was a lost cause.  
  
Bunny... he had to get to Bunny somehow, he remembered through the hazy fog of his addled brain. But he couldn't think clearly enough to remember which way the horses would have gone, and there wouldn't be much he could do in the condition he was in.  
  
As he tried to gather his head back together, so to speak, Keith trotted up with the packet of dried flowers that had somehow survived.  
  
 _~Hey, do you want these? Can I have these? Miss Samantha would like them, I bet.~_  
  
Kotetsu blinked at him. "Samantha?"  
  
 _~Oh, yes. She is teaching me to be a good dog!~_  
  
He felt a sudden spark of hope, and the pain in his body became much easier to bear. "She wouldn't happen to be a big white sheepdog, would she?"  
  
 _~Yes! How did you know?~_  
  
"I need you to take me to see her right now. The men who caused that explosion that scared away all the fish and game? They stole a very dear friend of ours, and I need her so I can contact people who can help me get him back."  
  
The dog went rigid, all traces of his goofy bouyancy vanishing in an instant, then he turned, leaving the dried flowers behind. _~I'll go ask my master.~_

  
  
===

  
  
The distance wasn't too terribly far, but Kotetsu was winded and hurting again by the time they topped a high hill to find a wide farm expanse. 'This is the place,' Keith said, still serious, and Kotetsu barely managed a nod.  
  
They went down and through the little gate in the fence, and Keith went right up to bark and scratch at the front door. A familiar shaggy white head poked through when it opened, and on seeing Kotetsu's condition and the fact that he was alone, Samantha immediately waved them in with a paw.  
  
Samantha's owners turned out to be a couple not too much older than him, and the neatness of the house somewhat embarrassed him in his filthy, ragged state. Neither paid any mind to it, though, aside from the woman fussing over him like his mother, insisting on cleaning and bandaging his wounds. The man pushed a mug into his hands, telling him it would help with the pain, and while the warmth of it was comforting, he could also smell the liquor in it.  
  
Once the introductions had been made and the pair had given him their once-over, he was thankfully left alone with the dogs.  
  
 _~The Baron has him, doesn't he?~_ Samantha asked quietly as soon as the door closed behind her owners, and when Kotetsu shamefacedly mumbled an affirmative, she growled.

"I'm sorry," Kotetsu said quietly. "I couldn't-"  
  
 _~It's not your fault,~_ Samantha said, giving his uninjured shoulder a gentle pat. _~And there's no time for regrets right now.~_  
  
He took as deep a breath as he could. "Right. Getting Bunny back and safe is the most important thing."  
  
She flipped open the latch of a chest with her nose and began digging around in it, coming up with a small silver piece shaped like the seal that had been on their map. _~Keith, let me borrow your teeth for a second.~_  
  
The retriever perked up, wagging his tail, then went to assist his teacher in getting the piece fastened to her collar.  
  
"What will that do?" Kotetsu asked.  
  
 _~It's my emergency summons. Once we leave my owners' property, it will alert Nathan and every one of his creatura and elemental agents that something has gone wrong on my branch of the trails.~_  
  
"And because it's yours, Nathan will know that it has to do with Bunny."  
  
 _~Exactly. The Baron and his men probably have a wide lead on us by now, but, hopefully, this will give us a chance at keeping track of them and finding a way to catch up.~_  
  
He still hurt, but he didn't care, now more determined than ever. "Good. Let's go," he said, getting up from the stool he'd been guided to.  
  
 _~Can I come, too?~_ Keith suddenly piped up.  
  
Even though he was almost her size, Samantha lightly gave him a chiding cuff. _~Your master will be looking for you, pup.~_  
  
 _~But I can assist! My teeth are sharper than sharp, and you know I'm fast! And I want to help!~_  
  
Samantha glanced at Kotetsu, who hesitated, then gave a small shrug with his good shoulder. She sighed. _~Fine. But I'm not carrying you home if you bite off more than you can chew.~_  
  
They left once Samantha had given her owners a heads up about where they were going, and as soon as they exited the gate at as fast a clip as they could manage, the little silver piece on Samantha's collar exploded into a ball of bright orange-pink light that hovered at her throat.  
  
It made Kotetsu's heart give a little leap, and he gritted his teeth as he urged himself on. _'Hang on, Bunny. We're coming.'_

  
===

  
  
The glow faded as they traveled, but their information network did not.  
  
Squawking starlings with their markings and eyes glowing red pointed their direction. A little golden fox that he was sure was Ivan guided them to food and water when exhaustion began to take its toll. At the river, a badger had pouches for them containing herbal liquids that soothed aching muscles and the pain in his chest.  
  
Clouds had been building ominously over their heads for hours, but, so far, what little luck they had had continued to hold out and no storm had been dumped on them. Kotetsu tried to think about it as little as possible, to keep from jinxing himself.

Instead, he kept himself focused on the gathered reports. The three of them had been making surprisingly good time. According to the bird spies, they’d managed to cut the lead the Baron had on them by an entire _day_ , a travel speed Kotetsu had never managed before in his _life_. On one hand, that meant that if they could keep up their current pace, they could potentially catch the hunter crew in one more day’s time.  
  
On the other, that meant they’d be catching up before the Baron reached Nathan’s home territory. Which meant that the only help they would be able to get would be the forest agents, and as much as he wanted to get Bunny back, Kotetsu didn’t want to ask anyone who hadn’t already gotten involved in the situation to risk themselves.  
  
Samantha and Keith agreed, and as they bedded down to get a tiny bit of reprieve before resuming the grueling pace bright and early, it was decided. If the others hadn’t arrived before they reached the Baron’s party, they were just going to have to try their best to sneak in and get Bunny without getting themselves killed.  
  
He ended up not sleeping well. Warm, furry bodies kept him from freezing in the night chill, but they weren’t right. Worries about how Bunny was faring plagued him both awake and once his body had given up to the need for rest.  
  
They all roused before dawn, barely stopping to eat before they silently picked the trail back up. A hollow full of nesting owls told them that they’d seen the Baron and his men stopped to camp as well when they’d gone out hunting during the night. That was some good news, at least. If the hunters took time to feed and water the horses before moving out, that would cut their lead down by another hour.  
  
Unfortunately, by midday, the clouds had decided they’d been given enough time, and snow began falling thick and fast. Samantha and Keith struggled to keep the scent trail, but the three of them continued to plow forward as fast as they could make themselves go. The wind hadn’t joined the snow, so Kotetsu took the risk of building a small fire they could all huddle close to during their one and only break of the day. _‘We’ll make it,’_ he chanted in his mind like the invocations of the monks that had lived near his family’s home. _‘We’re coming.’_

  
  
===

  
  
Night had fallen and the snow had settled into a heavy blanket on the ground when they spotted the glow of fires. Careful to keep themselves downwind, they snuck up to the treeline of the clearing to find their prey had set up camp.  
  
Seeing Bunny kneeling, bereft of his fur, beside the old man; seeing the blank, carefully schooled emptiness in his face and posture made Kotetsu’s vision briefly go red. A soft growl beside him told him of Samantha’s own opinion on the matter, and he briefly bit his fingers to get his rage back under control, then put a hand on the back of her neck to steady her.  
  
Plan.  
  
Their only hope was to stick to their plan.  
  
Samantha had the best chance of sneaking close. Her fur blended her into the snow almost perfectly, and if she could just get close enough to free and spook the horses, the confusion might give them just enough edge.  
  
Hopefully.  
  
The cold had long seeped through fur and clothes, and they all waited numbly for the hunters and their boss to bed down. Keith fidgeted beside him, and Samantha gave him as unnoticeable a cuff as possible to keep him still. Except for one sentry, all of the party had gathered at the fire to eat, so all they had to do was-  
  
He froze when the laughing man suddenly looked in their direction, a savage smile spreading across the man’s tattooed face.  
  
This time, he managed to react fast enough that he and the dogs weren’t blown into the trees or sky high, but they ended up being dumped into the clearing in a heap, and when Kotetsu raised his head, the laughing man was standing over them with a glint in his eyes that promised torture.  
  
“No games,” the Baron’s voice snapped, and Kotetsu turned his head just enough to see that Bunny was watching them, wide-eyed and tense, from his position by his master’s side. “Make _sure_ he’s dead this time.”  
  
“Tch,” the tattooed man muttered, looking briefly irritated at his fun being cut short, then stretched out a hand.  
  
An inhuman, snarling _screech_ like nothing Kotetsu had ever heard before split the air, and he saw a brief glance of blazing green eyes before the laughing man disappeared into thin air, followed by a violent _crash_ somewhere in the trees.  
  
The Baron and the hunters were as surprised as he and the dogs were, staring off in the direction of more crashing noises. Snow exploded into a cloud around them as the fight briefly came back to the clearing, and that seemed to snap the surly redhead out of his trance. Apparently looking to make good where the laughing man had failed, he lunged at Kotetsu, sending a solid rock ahead of him to crush them all.  
  
Something spiky grabbed them out of the way, just in time for Antonio to meet the rock wall, halting its advance with his heavy body. Streaking flames and daggers of ice halted two hunters before they could raise their crossbows, and the fight erupted into a melee of weapons and magic.  
  
Their spiny rescuers turned out to be tree branches, and Pao-lin grinned at him as she set them down before casting a lightning spell to shatter another rock wall. “You look surprised to see us.”  
  
“Understatement,” Kotetsu said weakly. “We’re nowhere near your territory, I thought-“  
  
“Oh, there’ll be a hell of paperwork later to hash all this out,” Nathan said, shielding his back and passing him a long knife. It took him a second to even recognize the man; even with the normal pink hair, he was dressed in drab travel clothes that looked almost alien on him. “But I took the prerogative as boss to decide this was a little more important. Where’s our rabbit?”  
  
“He’s-” they were forced to dodge a powderkeg spell, and Kotetsu lunged to stab the hunter responsible for it, barely missing getting envenomed fangs in his arm in the process. “He’s still under the thrall, but he’s trying to fight off an old ‘friend’ of ours.”  
  
“The Baron’s gone!” Karina called from her vantage point near the wagon, and Nathan’s expression grew even harder at that news.  
  
“You’ll have to go after him,” he hissed to Kotetsu.  
  
“And leave Bunny to face that psycho by _himself_?”  
  
“If the collar’s still working, that’s not the _only_ thing he’s fighting. And the longer he has to battle his own mind _and_ an opponent, the higher his chances of _losing_ are. We have to break that amulet!”  
  
Kotetsu hesitated only for a second, then a tree bursting into splinters from Bunny’s fight made up his mind, and he whistled sharply. “Samantha, Keith! Let’s go!”  
  
The pair looked up from their kill of one of the hunters, then streaked across the clearing evading more as they bounded to him.  
  
A single set of hoof prints lead away through a part of the clearing combat hadn’t reached yet, but once they went past the brushline, it was too dark to see. The dogs sniffed around, trying to find the trail, then Samantha made a frustrated whine and sneezed.  
  
 _~Too much blood and cinders.~_  
  
Kotetsu swore vividly under his breath. Dammit, there had to be _some_ way to-  
  
Desperate frustration and anger fueled that feral feeling he’d had earlier, when he’d seen the inventor’s betrayal. He suddenly found it a lot easier to see in the dark, and when he breathed deep, the air came with a dizzying whirlwind of new scents he’d never noticed before. He felt _stronger_.  
  
 _~Are you all right?~_ Keith asked, worriedly nosing his hand when he swayed on his feet.  
  
Kotetsu didn’t respond for a second, reorienting himself to his new senses, then instinct picked out the smell of a horse and cologne out of the miasma, and he smiled. “Doing good. This way.”  
  
Whether they sensed the change or not, the dogs didn’t question him, following as he raced through the trees. He barely even felt the snow and dead branches crunching under his feet or the exhaustion and pain that had been nipping at their heels. He felt faster, more agile, and ready to do severe damage to the man who’d stolen so much from him and Bunny.  
  
He didn’t slow down even a little when he spotted the horse, lunging at the noble on the beast’s back. A shielding spell blasted him with bruising force, knocking him to the ground, and Keith leaped over him to latch teeth into the Baron’s arm before he could throw up another one. The horse, terrified at being attacked, bucked and reared with a scream, and Kotetsu took the opportunity to stab at the man while his balance was off.  
  
They were all thrown free by the horse at that moment, and Samantha moved aside to let it escape. They had their quarry cornered, the horse could go free. Crouching and snarling, they advanced on the Baron, before Samantha leaped first, teeth aimed at his throat.  
  
Spikes flew at them from the ground, and they were heedless as their clothes and fur were cut. Fire lashed out on them, and they threw themselves through the flames. Kotetsu finally found the opening he needed and dove in low, knife at the ready.  
  
They both tumbled back, blade slashing at cloth and skin, and the ground suddenly vanished beneath them. He realized too late that they’d been at the edge of a gorge, hidden by the snow and darkness.  
  
The dogs howled piercingly behind them as they fell, and something suddenly shot out of the rocky side of the gorge to catch him, wrapping solidly around his middle as the tree branches had done before. There was no such rescue for the Baron, and the old man vanished into the darkness with a scream that was cut off by a sickening thud.  
  
Hanging in mid air, Kotetsu finally came back to himself, the darkness seemingly closing in as his vision returned to normal. Feeling around, he guessed that he was being held by roots, and took a deep breath. “I don’t know if you can hear me this way, Pao-lin, but I need you to lower me to the ground. I still have to get the amulet.”  
  
Apparently, she could, because the roots carefully, gently stretched from the dirt and rock, easing him down until he was standing steady. The moon chose that moment to finally peek from behind the clouds and, despite knowing the old man had more than deserved it, the sight of the grotesquely twisted body on the rocks at the bottom of the gorge made him shudder.  
  
He shook it off and went to check clothing, finding a piece that still pulsed with the same resonance as Bunny’s collar despite the old man’s death. A sharp yank broke the clasp, and he abandoned the body with his prize. He found a rock that looked like it would do the trick, then laid the amulet down on another and picked up the stone.  
  
One swing. A chip.  
  
Another swing. The stone cracked, and a strange, high whine started up, making his ears ache.  
  
He brought the rock down a third time, and the amulet burst, a shockwave throwing him back against the wall of the gorge. When the spots had cleared from his vision, he gritted his teeth and hefted himself to his feet.  
  
 _~What was that noise? Is everything okay down there?~_ Samantha called from above.  
  
“Fine,” Kotetsu yelled back as best as he could, then began the climb back up.

  
  
===

  
  
Samantha and Keith ended up having to assist him in walking. Without all the adrenaline-fueled extra strength, he was feeling _every_ single wound he’d taken in the last few days. And they weren’t doing much better, really.  
  
When they returned to the hunters’ clearing, cloaked men lay dead in the snow and the wagon was burning down to embers. A tiny bit of spite welled up in his chest when he saw that the laughing man and the redhead were among them, but it all quickly turned to worry when he saw Pao-lin crouching in the snow, a mass of bloodied fluff in her arms. “Is- Is he-?”  
  
“Breathing,” she said. “But he’s barely holding on.”  
  
“He was still struggling from the thrall when the last hunter went down,” Nathan said. “Probably made his injuries a whole lot worse on his own. Then he just collapsed like his puppet strings had been cut. I’m assuming-?”  
  
Kotetsu nodded, swallowing past the lump in his throat. “Amulet’s broken. Baron’s dead.”  
  
Nathan straightened, looking at the battered state they were all in and the position of the moon. “No sense in trying to make it home tonight, not in this condition. Let’s find the closest inn. We can worry about how to handle our recovery once we’re somewhere safe.”

  
  
===

  
  
At a soft, snuffling whimper, Kotetsu opened his eyes and slowly rolled over to check the basket by his bed. Bunny still lay curled in a bandaged ball, left hind leg kicking a little. Reaching down as best as his own bindings would allow, Kotetsu petted his companion’s velvety ears. The rabbit stilled, but he knew it would only be for a little while.

They’d been staying in the inn for three weeks. Nathan, Antonio, and Karina had returned home on the second, but Pao-lin and Samantha had stayed to keep watch and provide assistance. Keith had stayed as well, and though Samantha said it was in case she needed an extra set of teeth, Kotetsu suspected she just hadn’t wanted to send the pup back on the long trip home by himself.  
  
Aside from pains in his chest, which he had a feeling were going to become a permanent winter ache, he’d been recovering nicely, thanks to Pao-lin’s skill with painkillers and healing concoctions. But Bunny…  
  
The sniffling noises started again, and Kotetsu resumed petting. While, so far, Bunny had healed from his physical injuries faster than him, and probably wouldn’t have to keep his bandages as long as him, the rabbit had never once roused since the fight in the forest. Instead, he’d spent the entire time either huddled in as small a ball as possible or twitching fitfully in his sleep.  
  
Nathan had been sending them reports on his search for information, but so far, there was fruitlessly little to show for it. For obvious reasons, the use of a Thrall was rarely recorded by those who implemented them, and out of what could be found, no one had ever been reported as fighting one the way Bunny had. As to what damage doing so might have done… they had nothing. Using magic to try and pry into his mind was too risky in his state, and everything else they’d tried had failed.  
  
Bunny just had to wake up on his own.  
  
Kotetsu hated it. Bunny had never really mentioned whether he could dream or not, but seeing him like this, struggling against what could only be nightmares, still trapped, in a way, by the bastard who’d made his life a torturous hell for so long, made him wish he’d gotten in at least one good deep stab before they’d fallen into the gorge.  
  
After dinner had been brought to their room, he was sitting up in bed when Bunny began to shake and whimper again. Ignoring how it pulled his side, Kotetsu started to lean over the bed’s edge to stroke his ears again, when inspiration suddenly struck.  
  
 _Touch._  
  
They’d been trying to avoid too much contact in order to allow everyone’s wounds to heal, but what if Bunny _needed_ that? Petting him had certainly been the only way to calm him down at all, and there was the way they’d been sharing bed space for so long… His mind also called up the memory of their conversation months ago, about Bunny finding his scent in particular comforting.  
  
It was kind of a simplistic idea compared to the magic and medicine they’d tried using before, but the worst that could happen was that Bunny didn’t respond, right?  
  
Suddenly not hungry, he set his tray aside on the bedside table and tapped the tiny summons gem that Samantha had left him if they needed anything. After a second, there was a scratching at the door, then the sheepdog lightly butted it open to poke her head in.  
  
 _~Finished already?~_  
  
“Uh, sort of. I was thinking… and this might sound kind of stupid, but… maybe Bunny would sleep better if I were holding him.”  
  
 _~Oh?~_  
  
She only sounded curious, not skeptical, but his face still heated up a little. “Well, it’s been a long time since he’s had to sleep in a basket,” he floundered. His brain prodded at him to just spit out what he’d been thinking, but he found it was a lot harder to bring up the scenting thing to Samantha than he had Nathan back then. Considering what he’d been told then, it felt kind  of like having to talk birds and bees with his mother. “If, um, he could get a few nights’ good sleep this way, maybe it would sort of get his emotional strength back up.”  
  
Saints, that sounded bad, even to him. But Samantha simply gave a soft hum as she considered the notion, then she padded over to inspect the sleeping rabbit. _~I’m not entirely sure about this idea of yours,’~_ she finally said, and Kotetsu tried not to fidget. _~It sounds rather… I don’t know, a little too **obvious**.~_ Which had been one of his worries, too. ~ _But considering we’re more or less out of any other feasible options at the moment, I don’t see why we couldn’t give it a try.~_  
  
Kotetsu held his breath as she carefully, delicately lifted Bunny out of the basket by the scruff. Rearing back on her hind paws, she placed the rabbit on the bed, then quickly moved aside to avoid getting kicked in the nose as Bunny became agitated again. Trying not to get hit with any sharp little claws himself, Kotetsu settled himself down and gently pulled Bunny to huddle against his chest like he’d done most nights his companion was in furry shape.  
  
Bunny sniffled, squirming enough that Samantha fretted over him possibly reopening a wound, then buried his face against Kotetsu’s neck, breathing deep.  
  
He and Samantha looked at each other, then she made a little rumble of relief when Bunny made no further efforts to escape. _~Now, we wait some more, I suppose,~_ she said, then gripped the tray in her teeth, slid it off the bedside table, and left the room.

  
  
===

  
One day, then two, then three, Kotetsu kept Bunny by his side at all times possible. They’d both shed their bandages, and Pao-lin had even determined him to have regained enough strength that he could start moving around and occasionally wandering the halls to stretch his legs.  
  
But Bunny still slept on.  
  
The rabbit’s sleep was quiet, peaceful. He’d stopped running from night terrors, and Kotetsu fervently hoped that meant that he was honestly resting, and something would change, soon. The waiting was easier now, sure, but that didn’t mean he liked it any more.  
  
On the fourth day, the violent winter storms roared in, rattling the windows and shutters and sending everyone to huddle by the fireplaces. Kotetsu tried to ignore the howling of the wind outside and sleep, but as it had done every year, the weather brought nightmares with it.  
  
Tomoe lay dead, ravaged by her illness as he’d seen her a hundred thousand times before in his mind. This time, however, instead of the medicine woman’s shroud, a bloodied, skinned, dirt-matted rabbit pelt lay stretched over her, and the sight of it dropped him to his knees to retch.  
  
Both of them. He’d lost… he’d lost-  
  
Warm golden light flooded his mind, and he woke with a sharp gasp.  
  
And found himself staring into glowing green eyes.

  
  
===

  
  
The weather had kept them trapped for several more days before Samantha and Keith declared their intentions to return to their homes -with promises to visit, of course. Kotetsu, Bunny, and Pao-lin had seen them off before setting out themselves for Nathan’s house, the two of them sheltering Pao-lin from the biting cold when necessary.  
  
Nathan, of course, had insisted that he and Bunny keep ‘their’ room until spring, and they hadn’t really been in a position to say no.  
  
“Have you thought about what you’re going to do once the thaw comes?” Bunny asked as they sat by the fireplace. He was working on modifying and reinforcing the new snares they’d gotten, while Kotetsu fashioned and tested  bowstrings.  
  
“I’ll probably rebuild. Now that the Baron’s not around to pay them anymore, I doubt I’ll have much in the way of mercenaries to worry about. Maybe I could even go a little bigger this time.”  
  
“Will it be in the same place?”  
  
“I think I’d like to stay in the valley, yeah,” Kotetsu said with a nod. “I might build in that clearing near the creek fork, though. Be easier to get water that way, and it’d be closer to the pass, too, so you could come visit me easier.”  
  
Bunny looked up from the snares, then tilted his head in confusion. “Why would I be visiting you? I’m going, too.”  
  
Kotetsu looked over, then shrugged. “I mean, you’re free , now, right? You can travel all you want, or live here if you’d rather-“  
  
Fingertips pressed against his mouth, cutting him off, and he blinked at the resolute expression on Bunny’s face.  
  
“I’m going with you. I _choose_ to go with you.”  
  
It was so simple and so quietly said, and yet it completely knocked the wind out of him for a minute. When he could breathe again, he inhaled deeply and just stared back at Bunny, who was waiting with increasing apprehension for some kind of response. Then he reached out and threaded his fingers into pale curls, pulling the rabbit closer to touch foreheads.  
  
“Definitely a bigger house, then,” he finally managed to say with a smile, and Bunny laughed at him in relief before snuggling closer. They settled comfortably back to their work, listening to the sounds of the crackling fireplace and the winter wind.


End file.
